1 


"We  showed  a  few  poor  trape/e  and  bareback  turns 


THE  CONFESSIONS 
OF    A    CON    MAN 


AS  TOLD  TO 

WILL     I  R  W  IN 


Illustrated  by 
W.    GLACKENS 


NEW  YORK 

B.  W.    H  U  E  B  S  C  H 

1913 


Copyright,  1909,  by 
The  Curtis  Publishing  Company 

Copyright,  1909,  by 
B.  W.  Huebach 


GIFT 


Printed  in  U.  S.  A. 


£555*7 

R 


Acknowledgment  is  hereby  made  to 
the  publishers  of  The  Saturday  Evening 
Post  of  Philadelphia  for  their  courtesy  in 
assenting  to  the  arrangement  by  which 
the  text  and  illustrations  of  this  book  are 
reissued  in  their  present  form. 


956 


PREFACE 

When  these  confessions  appeared  se 
rially,  friends  and  distant  enquirers  took 
it  for  granted  that  they  were  fiction;  that 
I  had  stitched  together,  from  the  experi 
ences  of  many  grafters,  the  biography  of 
a  typical  one.  I  hasten  to  assure  the 
reader  that  this  is  a  genuine  confession; 
that  I  figure  in  it  but  as  the  transcriber 
of  a  life  story  told  me — I  believe  with 
every  conscientious  effort  at  truth— 
during  a  month  of  pleasant  association  in 
New  York.  As  a  reporter,  a  little  skilled 
in  distinguishing  the  truth  from  the  lie, 
I  believed,  when  I  wrote,  in  the  sincerity 
of  this  story.  Since  then  letters  from  his 
old  companions  of  the  road,  who  wished 
to  be  put  into  communication  with  him 
again,  have  confirmed  detail  after  detail. 
I  have  disguised  a  name  or  a  locality  here 
7 


8  PREFACE 

and  there ;  otherwise  I  have  set  down  only 
what  he  told  me,  trying  through  it  all  to 
give  some  flavor  of  the  man  and  his  vo 
cabulary.  The  vocabulary  is  not  the 
least  interesting  thing  about  that  person 
ality  of  mud-and-rainbows.  Uneducated 
and  unread,  he  has  a  keen  perception  of 
the  value  of  words,  and  especially  of  those 
Latinate  words  which  express  an  intellect 
ual  idea.  He  pounces  upon  a  new  phrase ; 
he  makes  it  his  own  upon  the  moment.  I 
mention  this,  lest  I  be  charged  with  dress 
ing  these  plain  tales  of  the  highway  in  a 
vocabulary  too  pretentious  for  the  sub 
ject  or  the  man. 

WILL  IRWIN 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.     I   LEARN   TO    CHEAT    WITH    MARKED 

CARDS          .          .          .          .          .13 

An  Optical  Illusion  in  Anilin  Dye— Off  to 
St.  Louis  for  a  Good  Time — Lumber  Swede's 
Squeeze  Wheel— The  Phony  Poolroom  Enter 
prise—A  Winter  at  Hot  Springs— The  Luck  of 
Slippery  Sills. 

II.     I  JOIN  THE  CIRCUS  AND  ELOPE  WITH 

MINNIE,  THE  ELEPHANT  .          .      51 

Wheels  Within  Wheels— The  Booster  and 
his  Business — Working  the  Railroad  Train — In 
troducing  Jakey,  the  Grafter — Working  on  the 
Sheriff's  Sympathies— Good-Natured  Little  Min 
nie—The  Circus  that  Disappeared. 

III.  I  BECOME  AN  EMINENT  FIXER  AND  AN 

ADEPT  AT  BIG  JOINT       .          .          .81 

Why  Twenty-Three  Means  Down  and  Out 
—Squaring  the  Mayor  and  His  Minions— Trouble 
in  a  Lumber  Camp— Clanking  Days  in  Texas— A 
Wild-Goose  Chase  to  Australia. 

IV.  I    REJUVENATE    THREE-CARD    MONTE     120 

How  I  Worked  the  Day  Coaches— I  Play 
the  Part  of  a  Texas  Cattleman— The  Tough  Citi 
zen  of  Breathitt— Working  a  Bluff— What  Mr. 
Belmont  Missed. 

V.     WHY  I  CUT  IT  OUT  .          .          .159 

The  Collapse  of  the  Gold-Brick  Industry— 
An  Alliance  with  Soapy  Smith— The  Yellow 
Diamond  Game— Cutting  It  Out  for  Keeps. 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


We  showed  a  few  poor  trapeze  and  bareback 
turns  .....  Frontispiece 

OPPOSITE  PAGE 

So  I  dropped  out  of  school  early,  and  went  to 
work  in  a  billiard  hall  .  .16 

I  must  have  taken  three  hundred  dollars  from 
Pat  that  winter  .  .20 

I  made  myself  so  useful  that  they  gave  me  an 

interest  in  one  of  the  shell  games  .       56 

He  draws  from  the  pile  the  envelope  which  I 
have  marked  with  my  thumb-nail,  and  takes 
out  the  card  .  .  .116 

And  show  them,  very  awkwardly,  how  a  dealer 
manipulates  three-card  monte  .  .  136 

"I  want  back  the  thousand  dollars  which  I  gave 
you  yesterday  on  some  fake  diamonds," 
said  he.  -  176 


11 


THE 
CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

CHAPTER  I 

I  LEARN  TO  CHEAT  WITH  MARKED 
CARDS 

AT  seventeen  or  thereabouts  I  de 
liberately  picked  my  vocation  in 
life  and  became  a  grafterA  By  that  I 
don't  mean,  probably,  what  you  mean. 
The  word  "grafter"  has  been  pulled  into 
politics,  and  its  original  sense  is  lost.  On 
my  side  of  the  police  fence,  we  mean 
by  it  any  one  who  uses  skin  games  as  a 
vehicle  for  stalling  through  life.  I  began 
as  a  card  cheater,  and  for  thirty  years  I 
dallied  with  all  the  games — phony  poker, 
three-card  monte,  gold  bricks,  big  joint, 
wire-tapping  and  a  dozen  others  which 
haven't  any  names.  I  cleaned  up  thou 
sands  on  single  tricks  in  those  thirty 
is 


14    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

years — and  mussed  them  up  as  fast  as 
I'd  cleaned  them.  I  put  into  my  business 
the  industry,  the  hard  thought,  the  energy 
and  the  brains  to  succeed  in  pretty 
nearly  any  legitimate  line.  When  I  quit 
the  game  over  night,  about  two  years  ago, 
I  had  just  ten  thousand  dollars.  And, 
even  then,  I  was  luckier,  a  great  deal 
luckier,  than  most  of  them.  A  grafter's 
dollar  is  greased.  I'm  not  what  you 
would  call  converted,  either.  I  played 
the  game,  but  I  never  carried  around  any 
conviction  of  moral  wrong.  My  meth 
ods  were  peculiar.  ExcspJLin  my  early 
card-cheating  days,  the  other  fellow  was 
always  out  to  do  me  a  great  deal  harder 
than  I  was  out  to  do  him.  I  beat  him  to 
it— that  is  all.  \ 

^1  was  arrested  once  for  skinning  a 
drummer  in  three-card  monte — one  of 
the  few  times  I  was  ever  in  jail,  even  for 
an  hour.  I  sent  for  the  young  district 
attorney — he  was  the  moral  leader  of  a 
reform  spasm — and  I  said: 


CHEATING  WITH  MARKED  CARDS    15 

"See  here.  As  far  as  this  com 
plaint  goes,  you've  got  me  to  rights.  It 
don't  go  far  enough — that's  all.  That 
fellow  did  go  up  against  me  in  three-card 
monte,  and  I  did  skin  him  out  of  his  roll. 
But  he  ain't  telling  the  rest.  I  knew  he 
was  a  city  man  of  easy  means ;  he  thought 
I  was  a  poor  granger  from  Texas  who  had 
sold  my  farm  and  was  bringing  the  money 
East  to  put  my  wife  into  a  sanitarium. 
Believing  that,  he  put  his  roll  up  against 
mine  under  the  impression  that  I  would 
be  easy.  Now  who's  the  worst  of  us 
two — that  drummer  or  me?"  The  dis 
trict  attorney  couldn't  help  seeing  it  my 
way,  and  he  let  me  go.  1 

My  reason  for  giving  up  the  business 
proceeded  from  every-day  horse-sense. 
An  honest  dollar  is  the  only  dollar  that 
don't  do  stunts  on  your  pillow  at  night. 
No  matter  how  they  stall  about  it,  the 
grafters,  big  and  little,  are  haunted  men. 
For  one  thing,  they're  always  afraid  of 
the  penitentiary.  I  know  about  prisons, 


16    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

though  I've  never  boarded  in  one,  and 
let  me  tell  you  they  are  punishment,  all 
right.  No  matter  how  clever  you  may 
be,  you  will  make  your  slip.  Guns  are 
another  horror  to  the  profession — the  per 
centage  of  mortality  by  violence  is  high. 
It's  of  no  use  for  a  grafter  to  go  heeled 
against  that  danger.  Suppose  I  had 
trouble  with  a  sucker  I'd  skinned,  and 
killed  him  to  save  my  own  life  ?  What 
chance  would  I,  a  professional  gambler, 
stand  in  court  ?  They'd  hang  me  before 
I  could  get  off  my  collar  and  tie.  I  had 
escaped  penitentiaries  and  guns  by  some 
pretty  narrow  margins;  and  at  forty-six 
I  determined  to  lead  such  a  life,  from 
then  on,  that  I  would  dare  to  look  over 
my  shoulder  in  the  dark.  That's  all  there 
is  to  my  reformation. 

I  began  in  a  small  way  as  a  no-account 
boy  of  seventeen.  We'll  call  my  home 
town  Windville,  because  that  isn't  how 
it  reads  on  the  map.  Most  of  the  way 
I'm  going  to  disguise  names,  anyhow. 


CHEATING  WITH  MARKED  CARDS  17 

Windville  is  a  child-size  college  city  in 
Illinois.  Parts  of  it  were  pretty  tough 
at  the  time.  My  father  was  as  good  a 
man  as  ever  walked,  but  too  indulgent 
with  me;  and  as  for  my  mother,  I  could 
always  get  around  her.  So  I  dropped 
out  of  school  early,  and  went  to  work 
in  a  billiard  hall.  I  made  good  money  in 
wages  and  tips,  and  I  took  to  losing  my 
earnings  in  poker.  My  steady  hang 
out  was  a  little  room  over  a  saloon. 
Professional  card  cheaters  came  into 
our  game  from  time  to  time.  I  looked 
on  them  as  heroes;  and  I  used  to  watch 
them  work.  Some  of  the  town  boys 
knew  how  a  professional  stacks  cards 
or  gets  a  cold  deck  on  the  table,  and  they 
taught  me.  I  began  to  practice.  When 
I  was  pretty  proficient  I  tried  out  my 
skill  in  haystack  games  for  small  money. 
I  found  that  I  was  good  enough  to  de 
ceive  the  average  gambler  of  Windville. 
When  I  was  sure  of  this  I  opened  a 
little  poker  room  of  my  own  up  over 


18    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

a  saloon.  My  first  crooked  deal 
wasn't  done  with  the  cards,  however; 
it  was  straight  stealing.  Strange,  but 
it  was  the  only  real  stealing  I  ever  did, 
except  the  justifiable  larceny  of  an 
elephant.  A  professional  gambler  named 
Pat  Malloy  showed  up  in  town  and 
began  to  play  in  my  room.  I  spotted 
him  for  a  cheater  the  first  night,  and  I 
refused  to  play  with  him;  but  I  let  him 
come  and  cheat  the  others  while  I 
watched  how  he  did  it.  Cold-decking 
was  his  specialty.  By  "cold  deck,"  I 
mean  the  substitution  of  a  deck,  already 
stacked,  for  the  one  which  has  just  been 
shuffled  and  cut  on  the  table.  The 
cold-decking  process  is  always  helped 
by  a  lot  of  draperies,  and  Pat,  who  wasn't 
a  very  smooth  operator,  generally  wore 
his  overcoat  when  he  was  playing.  As 
he  raked  in  each  pile  he'd  drop  the  chips 
in  his  overcoat  pocket;  and  I'd  reach  in 
every  night  and  extract  a  few.  I  must 
have  taken  three  hundred  dollars  in 


CHEATING  WITH  MARKED  CARDS  19 

chips  from  Pat  that  winter,  and  I  stole 
in  such  small  amounts  that  he  never 
tumbled.  By  that  time  I'd  gained,  from 
watching  him,  the  confidence  to  cheat 
on  my  own  account. 

A  rich  grocer  came  in  one  night,  half- 
drunk;  I  knew  that  he  had  a  roll  in  his 
clothes. 

"Here  is  the  time  to  begin,"  I  thought. 
When  I  dealt  out  the  fixed  hand  to 
him  I  felt  like  a  young  lawyer  before 
his  first  jury.  But  he  never  suspected; 
and  on  my  next  deal  I  had  more  confi 
dence.  I  played  him  along,  winning 
small  stakes  until  I  was  sure  of  myself. 
Then,  about  midnight,  when  he  could 
hardly  see  his  cards,  I  dealt  him  three 
kings  and  myself  three  aces.  His  roll 
was  about  four  hundred  dollars,  and  I 
took  it  all  on  that  hand. 

From  that  moment  I  never  sat  in  a 
square  game — I  cheated  all  the  time. 
It  brought  in  the  money  like  water. 
They  were  running  a  railroad  through 


20    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

town.  The  construction  foremen  and 
gang  bosses  came  into  our  place  with 
their  pay,  and  I  figured  to  clear  at  least 
one  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  every 
Saturday  night.  Between  times  I  took 
smaller  winnings  from  the  town  sports. 
The  next  fall  I  gave  up  that  room  and 
started  a  larger  one  over  the  opera  house. 
But  it  wore  out.  While  they  couldn't 
get  me  dead  to  rights,  I  had  the  reputa 
tion  of  a  cheater,  so  that  no  one  would 
play  with  me.  Almost  all  that  I  had 
saved  from  the  profits  of  the  little  card- 
room  I  lost  paying  for  rent,  light  and 
boosters  to  keep  the  big  place  going. 
There  I  learned  my  first  inside  lesson 
concerning  my  business — don't  keep  a 
crooked  game  long  in  any  one  place. 
Your  very  success  makes  people  shy 
of  it. 

Along  in  the  time  when  my  custom  was 
running  down  to  nothing,  I  first  met  Jim 
Ross.  He  was  an  old-time  gambler,  and 
his  specialty  was  marked  cards.  Once  he 


CHEATING  WITH  MARKED  CARDS    21 

figured  as  the  best  man  in  that  depart 
ment  of  the  business,  but  he  was  getting 
old  and  his  eyes  were  growing  dull.  You 
must  have  good  eyes  to  play  marked  cards. 
I  was  already  working  a  little  in  that  line 
with  an  old  deck  of  plaid-backs.  I  had 
strengthened  certain  lines  in  the  plaid 
pattern  to  designate  numbers  and  suits. 
Ross  was  barred  from  our  game,  but  he 
used  to  sit  and  watch  me  play.  One  night 
after  the  game  he  caught  me  in  the  hall. 
I  was  a  little  scared,  being  just  a  kid, 
when  he  flashed  on  me  some  wornout  cards 
which  he'd  picked  up  from  the  floor  and 
showed  me  the  lines  where  I'd  marked 
them. 

"Your  system's  no  good,"  he  said.  "You 
come  along  with  me.  I  know  the  only  way 
to  mark  cards.  I'll  make  you  rich." 

When  I  saw  he  meant  business,  I 
agreed.  My  poker-room  was  just  about 
busted,  and  I  was  flattered  by  the  offer. 
Ross  gave  me  three  packs  marked  on  his 
system,  and  set  me  to  practicing. 


22    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

There  are  a  hundred  ways  of  marking 
cards.  As  in  any  other  graft,  people 
keep  introducing  improvements.  Some 
times  you  take  a  very  sharp  knife  and 
make  dents  in  the  devices  of  the  scroll 
work.  Sometimes  you  make  similar  dents, 
not  in  the  scroll  work,  but  along  the 
white  edge  which  runs  around  the  back  of 
almost  all  cards.  The  last  system  has  a 
great  many  advantages.  For  one  thing, 
you  can  always  see,  by  tilting  the  deck  a 
little,  just  what  cards  are  buried  before 
the  draw.  In  other  systems  you  can  spot 
only  the  hands  and  the  top  card.  But  it 
can  be  easily  detected.  A  suspicious 
sucker  has  only  to  squint  along  the  cards 
horizontally  to  spot  the  knife  marks  at 
once. 

AN  OPTICAL  ILLUSION  IN  ANILIN  DYE 

All  things  considered,  Jim  Ross  had  the 
best  method  I  ever  used.  You  know  how 
most  playing-cards  are  made — red  or  blue 


CHEATING  WITH  MARKED  CARDS    23 

backs  with  a  scroll  work  in  white.  The 
operator  takes  a  very  thin  and  light  anilin 
dye,  of  the  same  general  color  as  the  backs, 
and  marks  over  all  the  white  figures  in  the 
scroll  work  except  one — the  one  which 
designates  the  number  and  suit  of  the 
card,  according  to  a  code  which  -he  has  in 
his  mind.  Look  at  it  all  you  want — unless 
you  know  where  to  look  you  could  never 
tell  that  the  color  had  been  tampered  with. 
It  is  just  an  optical  illusion. 

After  I  got  to  traveling  with  Ross  I 
discovered  why  he  came  into  Windville, 
where  he  was  known  for  a  cheater  and 
barred  from  all  the  games.  A  professor 
of  penmanship  in  the  business  college — a 
pillar  of  the  church,  too — was  the  operator 
who  colored  his  cards.  The  professor 
charged  thirty-six  dollars  a  dozen  packs. 
Afterward,  I  got  some  anilin  dyes  and 
learned  to  do  the  work  myself. 

To  play  with  marked  cards  takes  prac 
tice,  good  eyesight  and  concentration.  In 
fact,  I  think  it  is  one  of  the  hardest  pieces 


24    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

of  manipulation  in  card  cheating.  It  was 
a  long  time  before  I  could  really  be  sure 
of  two  hands  at  the  table,  and  the  man 
never  lived  who  could  keep  accurate  track 
of  three.  I  was  a  keen  boy,  with  quick 
eyesight,  a  natural  card-player,  and  I  was 
good  enough  to  be  pretty  sure  of  two 
hands  by  the  time  Jim  Ross  and  I  got 
ready  to  travel. 

I'm  not  revealing  the  whole  game  when 
I  say  "marked  cards."  For  we  were  out 
to  beat  the  gambling-houses,  and  the  first 
problem  was  to  land  the  cards  in  the  game. 
Jim  Ross  attended  to  that  part  of  it. 
Sometimes  he  would  find  where  the  house 
kept  its  cards,  would  steal  them,  and 
would  substitute  marked  cards  with  simi 
lar  designs  on  the  back.  We  carried  all 
the  standard  brands  in  our  gripsacks.  If 
that  couldn't  be  done,  he  would  find  the 
stationery  store  or  drug  store  where  the 
house  bought  its  supply,  and  would  bribe 
the  clerk  to  give  them  our  marked  decks. 
Sometimes  he  worked  through  the  porter. 


CHEATING  WITH  MARKED  CARDS  25 

That  part  of  the  game  required  great 
knowledge  of  human  nature.  Looking 
back  at  him  now,  after  thirty  years  in  the 
game,  I  see  that  knowledge  of  human 
nature  was  just  what  Jim  Ross  didn't 
have.  We  failed  often  at  the  very  start 
because  he  made  slips  in  handling  men. 

I  won  my  first  big  stake  in  Paris,  Illi 
nois,  and  it  came  so  easily  that  it  gave  me 
confidence  to  play  the  game  anywhere. 
We  had  introduced  our  cards  by  bribing 
a  steerer  whom  Ross  happened  to  know. 
We  started  with  poker. 

When  I  was  about  two  hundred  dollars 
winner,  some  of  the  losers  quit  and  broke 
up  the  game.  I  had  marked  a  traveling 
salesman  as  the  good-thing  of  the  party. 

When  he  proposed  to  me  a  two-handed 
game  of  casino  I  jumped  at  the  chance. 
The  losers  stood  around  watching  our 
play,  and,  by  and  by,  they  began  to  squab 
ble  over  the  question  whether  any  man  can 
tell,  before  the  final  show-down,  the  last 
four  cards  in  a  casino  hand.  You  know 


26    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

the  best  casino  experts  say  that  they  can 
do  it.  I  was  no  casino  expert,  but  there  I 
sat  with  a  marked  deck  which  I  could  read 
from  the  back  as  well  as  from  the  face.  I 
spoke  up  and  said:  "That  ain't  very  hard. 
I  think  I  can  do  it." 

My  opponent  was  getting  a  little  drunk. 
He  laughed  at  me  and  said: 

"Kid,  here's  twenty-five  dollars  that 
says  you  can't!"  I  covered  the  money;  I 
dealt  and  we  played  down  to  the  last  four 
cards.  Then  I  studied  and  figured  and 
studied ;  and  finally  I  talked  the  four  cards 
straight  off  and  pulled  in  the  twenty-five 
dollars. 

I  was  following  a  principle  which  Ross 
had  laid  down  for  me,  and  which  all  pro 
fessional  grafters  know.  Never  let  your 
man  win  the  first  throw.  You'd  think  that 
making  him  win  would  be  the  best  way  of 
leading  him  on.  Not  at  all.  If  he's  got 
an  ounce  of  sport  in  him,  a  small  loss  on 
the  first  throw  makes  him  come  back  hard, 
to  recover  his  money.  So  I  won  that  stake, 


CHEATING  WITH  MARKED  CARDS    27 

and  my  opponent  wasn't  satisfied.  He 
wanted  to  bet  I  couldn't  do  it  again.  I 
said  maybe  I  couldn't;  I  wasn't  always 
sure;  but  I'd  try  it  again  for  ten  dollars. 
I  called  one  card  wrong,  purposely,  and 
lost.  By  that  time  he  was  crazy  for  my 
money.  Winning  and  losing,  I  led  him  on 
until  he  had  five  hundred  dollars  down. 
As  that  seemed  to  be  the  extent  of  his  pile, 
I  called  the  turn.  Jim  Ross  and  I  got 
away  before  he  had  time  to  think  it  over. 
We  went  on  from  town  to  town,  getting 
barred  from  games  sometimes  and  some 
times  winning  all  the  house  money  in  the 
place.  The  combination  of  an  old  grafter 
with  a  young  apprentice  is  very  common 
in  my  trade.  The  older  man  furnishes  the 
experience,  and  the  younger  one,  with  his 
quicker  eyes  and  hands,  the  manipulation. 
Then  again,  an  old  cheater  gets  barred 
from  the  games  in  many  towns.  In  such 
places  he  can  plant  the  cards,  pipe  off  the 
good  things,  and  send  in  his  unknown  to 
do  the  work.  I  saw  the  end  of  such  a  com- 


28    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

bination  the  other  day;  and  though  it's 
jumping  a  quarter  of  a  century,  I  stop 
here  to  tell  about  it.  "Young  Michigan," 
who  isn't  young  any  longer,  discovered  a 
phenomenon  about  two  years  ago.  This 
fellow — he  was  a  young  ranch  hand — had 
a  new  device  for  getting  a  cold  deck  into 
the  game.  It  worked  like  grease.  Young 
Michigan  took  him  up,  and  played  him  all 
over  the  Far  West  and  along  the  Miss 
issippi.  Never  once  was  he  caught.  They 
coined  money.  Finally  Young  Michigan 
decided  to  break  the  big  club  games  in 
New  York.  They  came  on,  hired  a  suite 
of  rooms  in  a  good  hotel,  and  went  to  it. 
Michigan  was  spotted  in  the  metropolis 
on  account  of  old  connections  with  rou 
lette  games. 

He  sent  his  man  in  alone  and  waited 
outside.  The  first  night  the  granger  came 
back  with  no  winnings,  but  with  a  fine 
yarn  about  a  spectator  who  had  thrown 
an  eye  at  him  whenever  he  made  a  motion 
toward  that  cold  deck.  The  next  night— 


CHEATING  WITH  MARKED  CARDS  29 

same  result,  only  a  different  excuse.  At 
the  end  of  a  week,  Michigan  cornered  his 
assistant  in  the  hotel  and  took  him  to 
pieces  and  found  what  made  him  tick.  It 
was  a  simple  case  of  cold  feet — granger 
fear  of  the  bigness  and  richness  of  New 
York.  He'd  got  away  with  the  game  in 
Montana  and  Arizona  and  Oklahoma, 
where  one  false  motion  would  have  let  the 
lamplight  stream  into  him  from  three  dif 
ferent  directions.  In  New  York,  the 
home  of  the  soft  sucker,  where  he  took  no 
greater  risk  than  of  being  kicked  down 
stairs,  he  had  fallen  down  complete.  Mich 
igan  Kid  packed  up  that  night  and  took 
him  back  to  Arkansas. 

OFF  TO  ST.  LOUIS  FOR  A  GOOD  TIME 

To  return  to  Jim  Ross :  it  was  about  the 
same  story  for  nearly  a  year.  He  wasn't 
very  clever,  and  he  was  a  hard  man  to 
work  for.  His  disposition  was  naturally 
surly,  and  he'd  let  that  trait  grow  on  him 


30    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

as  he  got  older.  He  was  never  satisfied 
with  my  playing.  If  I  won  a  good  roll 
he'd  always  ask  why  I  didn't  work  it  dif 
ferently  and  make  more.  He  had  a  good 
thing  in  me,  and  he  knew  it — but  not  to 
the  extent  of  treating  me  white. 

At  Milan,  Missouri,  came  the  incident 
which  made  me  run  away  from  Jim  Ross 
the  first  time.  That  was  a  prosperous 
town,  with  three  or  four  good  games.  We 
registered  at  the  hotel,  and  Ross  went  out 
to  see  what  he  could  do  about  planting  the 
marked  decks.  While  he  was  gone  the 
hotel  proprietor  came  up  to  my  room.  He 
had  been  a  gambler  himself,  and  still  took 
an  interest  in  the  game.  He  gave  me  the 
high-sign  of  the  profession  to  show  he  was 
all  right,  and  said: 

"You're  too  clever  a  kid  to  be  throwing 
yourself  away  on  Jim  Ross.  He's  queered 
nearly  everywhere.  I'll  tell  you  now  that 
neither  he  nor  any  one  he's  steering  can 
get  into  a  game  in  this  town.  You'll  do 
best  to  leave."  I  reported  his  advice  about 


CHEATING  WITH  MARKED  CARDS  31 

leaving  town  to  Jim  Ross.  We  packed 
and  went.  I  determined  right  there  to 
make  the  break.  I  dropped  off  the  train 
at  a  way  station,  went  back  alone  to  Milan, 
and  broke  a  poker-game  with  a  cold  deck. 
My  winning  that  night  was  twelve  hun 
dred  dollars.  Free  as  a  lark,  I  started  for 
St.  Louis  to  have  a  good  time  on  it.  The 
second  faro  game  I  entered  I  bumped  into 
Jim  Ross.  He'd  figured  it  out  like  Sher 
lock  Holmes — that  I'd  go  back  to  Milan 
and  make  a  big  winning,  that  I'd  streak 
for  St.  Louis  to  spend  it,  and  that  I'd  land 
sooner  or  later  in  a  faro  game.  For  two 
days  he'd  been  lying  in  wait  for  me. 

Although  I  hated  him,  Ross  had  a  kind 
of  hypnotic  control  over  me.  I  handed 
over  half  my  winnings  and  went  back  to 
him  like  a  little  lamb.  So  we  passed  on, 
through  Missouri  and  down  into  Arkan 
sas.  We  lost  our  money  about  as  quickly 
as  we  made  it.  A  gambler's  dollar  is 
greased.  One  night  you  win  a  big  stake ; 
the  next  night  you  start  on  a  wild  jag  or 


32    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

go  up  against  faro;  the  next  morning 
you're  worrying  about  your  hotel  bill.  It 
is  a  curiosity  of  the  business  that  card 
cheaters,  who  know  how  crooked  all  the 
games  are,  nevertheless  blow  in  most  of 
their  winnings  in  gambling — dog  eat  dog. 
The  craving  for  excitement  accounts  for 
it,  I  suppose.  Something  must  be  doing 
all  the  time.  In  my  day  we  played  faro 
bank  mostly,  because  that  came  nearest  to 
being  a  straight  game.  The  introduction 
of  brace-boxes  and  high  layouts  has 
changed  all  that. 

I  ran  away  from  Ross  twice  more  in 
that  year.  On  one  of  these  runaway  ex 
cursions  I  hooked  up  with  an  old  pro 
fessional  whom  we  called  "Neversweat." 
In  his  way  he  was  a  remarkable  cheater. 
He  lived  a  very  correct  life.  Just  what 
he  did  with  all  the  money  he  made  I  never 
knew.  I  never  saw  him  spend  any  of  it  in 
dissipation.  I  don't  know  yet  where  he 
came  from,  nor  where  he  went  after  I  left 
him.  I've  always  had  a  notion  that  he  was 


CHEATING  WITH  MARKED  CARDS    33 

just  playing  to  make  a  great  stake  to  meet 
some  emergency.  Holding  out  cards  was 
his  specialty.  He  had  a  hand  twice  as  big 
as  mine.  He  could  palm  a  pair  of  kings 
and  keep  them  palmed  for  ten  minutes, 
while  he  dealt  and  played  and  made  ges 
tures.  I'd  have  liked  to  stay  with  him — 
but  Jim  Ross  caught  me. 

At  the  end  of  the  year  Ross  and  I  were 
in  Quincy  with  five  or  six  hundred  dollars 
apiece  in  our  pockets  .  We  went  up  against 
a  faro  game.  When  we  woke  next  morn 
ing,  broke,  he  laid  it  all  to  me.  He  acted 
so  disagreeable  that  I  punched  him  one 
for  luck  and  went  away  from  him  forever. 
A  few  years  later  Ross  died  of  heart  fail 
ure  in  a  Turkish  bath. 

It  was  a  good  time  for  a  visit  home,  and 
I  beat  my  way  back  to  Windville.  My 
mother  took  me  in  hand.  She  had  no  exact 
knowledge  of  what  I'd  been  doing,  though 
she  knew  that  it  was  something  pretty 
disreputable.  I  promised  her  to  brace  up, 
and  I  proved  that  I  meant  it  by  getting  a 


34    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

job  carrying  water  for  a  railroad  camp. 
In  two  weeks  I  was  timekeeper,  and  in  six 
weeks  gang  boss.  Before  the  end  of  the 
summer  I  had  taken  a  sub-contract  and 
was  running  thirty  'teams.  I've  figured 
since  what  I  might  have  been  if  I'd 
stopped  right  there  and  stuck  to  straight 
business.  But  we  finished  that  job.  I  took 
another  contract  farther  up  the  line,  was 
cheated  by  the  man  in  charge,  and  drifted 
back  to  the  old  poker  room  in  Windville. 
There  I  met  "Lumber  Swede,"  the  best 
straight  poker-player  I  ever  knew.  He 
was  an  ignorant  Scandinavian — I  don't 
believe  that  he  could  write  his  own  name. 
He'd  been  a  common  lumber- jack,  had 
learned  poker  in  the  camps,  and  had  de 
veloped  great  card  sense.  Lumber  Swede 
was  a  cheater,  all  right,  but  he  could  have 
come  pretty  near  making  a  living  playing 
straight.  He  earned  his  hundreds  of  thou 
sands,  like  the  rest  of  us,  and  at  one  time 
he  had  saved  a  pretty  good  pile;  but  the 
race-track  got  him.  When  I  saw  him  last 


CHEATING  WITH  MARKED  CARDS  85 

he  was  working  as  booster  in  a  Chicago 
poker  club.  You  know  the  game  has 
changed  a  lot  in  recent  years.  It's  all  in 
the  hands  of  "clubs" — entrance  fee  and 
qualifications  for  membership,  a  wink  at 
the  doorkeeper.  These  club  games  are  all 
jackpots,  and  a  quarter  of  the  opening 
stakes  is  the  percentage  to  the  house.  This 
rakeoff  is  so  high  that  it  doesn't  pay  the 
house  to  run  a  crooked  game.  But  they 
need  boosters  to  stimulate  interest  and  to 
keep  the  game  running.  As  soon  as  the 
place  opens  the  Swede  comes  in  and  starts 
a  game.  When  he  has  filled  the  table  and 
accumulated  a  waiting  list,  he  says  some 
thing  about  going  to  business,  cashes  in, 
and  retires  to  the  saloon  downstairs,  where 
he  stays  until  he's  summoned  to  stir  up 
interest  again.  Of  course,  being  the  best 
poker-player  in  the  country,  he  wins  more 
than  he  loses.  He  gets  a  percentage  on 
all  his  winnings  and  a  hundred  dollars  a 
month  besides.  So  he's  settled  down  in 
life  with  a  steady  job;  and  I  must  say  that 


36    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

he  has  finished  better  than  most  of  the 
cheaters  I  used  to  know. 


LUMBER  SWEDE'S  SQUEEZE  WHEEL 


When  he  met  me  in  the  poker-room  at 
Windville  he  was  all  heated  up  over  a 
"squeeze  wheel"  which  he  had  just  bought 
—the  device  was  new  then.  He  thought 
there  was  a  fortune  in  it.  Being  still  pretty 
green,  I  did,  too.  When  he  proposed 
partnership  I  jumped  at  the  chance. 

The  squeeze  wheel?  It  goes  by  various 
names.  The  gamblers  call  all  such  devices 
"spindles."  Any  one  who  has  followed 
country  fairs  must  have  seen  it  in  opera 
tion.  It's  a  big  pin,  like  a  clock  hand,  re 
volving  around  a  circle  which  is  spaced  off 
for  prizes — ten  dollars  in  one  space,  five  in 
another,  a  dollar  in  others,  a  lot  of  blanks, 
two  spaces  marked  "conditional"  and  one 
"lose."  The  wheel  goes  around;  wherever 
the  little  indicator  at  the  point  of  the  pin 
stops,  there  is  your  prize — or  your  lemon. 


CHEATING  WITH  MARKED  CARDS  37 

% 

It  stops  just  where  the  operator  wants 
it  to  stop.  A  clutch  under  the  table  guides 
the  movement,  slowing  the  wheel  down 
or  speeding  it  up.  Sometimes  the  clutch 
is  controlled  from  a  knob  which  sticks  out 
from  the  table,  just  where  the  operator 
is  resting  his  arm,  careless-like.  Some 
times  the  knob  is  under  a  stack  of  gold- 
pieces  upon  which  the  operator  keeps 
his  hand  while  the  merry  wheel  goes 
around. 

That  was  the  country-fair  season.  The 
Swede  figured  on  going  from  fair  to  fair, 
cleaning  up  the  grangers  and  making  a 
million.  He  was  badly  fooled.  In  some 
places  the  authorities  stopped  us;  in 
others,  we  fizzled  out  because  neither  of  us 
knew  how  to  handle  boosters.  Fixing  the 
authorities  and  shoving  the  boosters  are 
the  whole  works  in  such  a  game.  We  were 
a  ridiculous  team  for  a  squeeze  wheel — a 
green  kid  and  a  silent  Swede.  I  laugh 
about  it  yet.  By  the  end  of  a  fortnight  we 
had  only  four  hundred  dollars  left  between 


38    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

us,  and  we  lost  all  that  on  a  faro  bank. 
I  remember  that  expedition  chiefly  be 
cause  on  it  I  first  met  some  three-card- 
monte  men — Jim  Barnes  and  his  gang. 
He  was  a  great  hero  to  me,  for  I  was  still 
only  a  small  cheater,  and  he  was  the  best 
"broad-spieler"  on  the  road.  He  had  in 
his  gang  the  ex-city  marshal  of  Leadville. 
When  the  vigilantes  cleaned  up  that  town 
and  lynched  two  footpads,  the  marshal 
figured  that  they  might  be  turning  their 
attention  to  the  city  government  next,  and 
left  between  two  days.  Now  he  owns  a 
cattle-ranch  in  Texas  and  gambles  only 
for  fun,  and  his  pal  is  doing  well  in  the 
hotel  business.  I  mention  this  because  such 
a  finish  is  exceptional  among  professional 
gamblers.  These  were  old-time  monte 
men,  who  wore  no  disguises,  and  looked 
what  they  were.  From  hearing  them  talk 
I  got  a  great  hunch  for  that  game.  Years 
later,  and  after  monte  had  got  in  pretty 
bad  repute,  I  became  a  member  of  the  firm 
which  rejuvenated  it,  and  made  it  one  of 


CHEATING  WITH  MARKED  CARDS    39 

the  best-paying  propositions  on  the  road. 
I've  wished  at  times  that  I'd  stayed  with 
Lumber  Swede.  He  had  a  long,  cool, 
scheming  head  and  wonderful  card  sense, 
but  he  couldn't  express  himself.  With 
him  to  pull  things  off  and  me  to  work  the 
line  of  con-talk  which  I  acquired  in  my 
later  experience,  we  should  have  made  one 
of  the  greatest  combinations  in  the  coun 
try.  But  I  had  to  be  going,  and  ba<ck  I 
drifted  toward  Illinois,  making  for  any 
town  where  I  heard  there  was  a  good 
game,  tying  up  with  any  older  gambler 
who  was  willing  to  steer  me.  McCafferty, 
who  belongs  to  that  period,  was  the  best 
all-around  poker  cheater  I  ever  met,  just 
as  Lumber  Swede  was  the  best  straight 
player.  Marked  cards,  cold  decks,  stacks, 
glass — all  tricks  looked  the  same  to  him. 
Hayden,  with  whom  I  cleaned  up  a  game 
at  Springfield,  dropped  the  cards  and  took 
up  general  graft  at  about  the  time  I  did. 
For  years  we  ran  in  and  out  of  each  other's 
operations. 


40    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 
THE  PHONY  POOLROOM  ENTERPRISE 

Hay  den  is  in  bad  just  now.  They  have 
a  new  game  in  the  West  which  hasn't  been 
named  as  yet.  It  is  a  play  for  big  money, 
and  it  needs  an  elaborate  plant.  The 
grafters  hook  some  rich,  old,  country  sport 
and  tell  him  the  story  of  a  great  prize 
fight  winning  they  are  going  to  pull  off. 
They've  found  a  young  phenom.  He  is 
going  up  against  a  man  of  established 
reputation.  They  want  to  get  their  money 
down  on  the  unknown,  but  the  poolrooms 
won't  take  bets  from  them  because  they 
are  professional  gamblers.  Will  Mr. 
Sucker  act  as  their  betting  commissioner? 
They  approach  him  because  he  is  a  man  of 
standing,  and  also  a  patron  of  sport. 
They  will  pay  his  expenses  to  Chicago.  It 
will  only  be  necessary  for  him  to  take 
along  a  draft  for  twenty-five  thousand 
dollars  to  show  as  a  guarantee  that  he  is 
what  he  purports  to  be.  They  lead  him 
and  his  draft  to  the  training  quarters ;  they 


CHEATING  WITH  MARKED  CARDS    41 

give  him  a  chance  to  see  both  pugilists  at 
work.  Any  judge  of  fighters  can  perceive 
that  it  is  a  cinch.  Gradually,  and  without 
any  direct  steer  from  the  grafters,  the 
sucker  gets  enthusiastic  himself,  cashes  his 
twenty-five  thousand,  and  bets  it — in  a 
phony  poolroom.  The  "fight"  comes  off, 
and  his  man  lays  down.  Only  the  old- 
time  "cross,"  though  with  fine,  new  varia 
tions.  Hayden  pulled  this  off  two  or  three 
times;  but  something  went  wrong,  as 
things  are  bound  to  go  wrong  in  games 
which  require  so  many  cappers  and  con 
federates,  and  now  he's  under  indictment 
and  heavy  bail. 

I  had  gained  a  reputation  in  the  Middle 
West,  and  that  led  to  my  job  at  Hot 
Springs.  That's  still  a  pretty  tough  town, 
but  it's  Purity  Village  compared  to  those 
days.  Everything  was  as  wide  open  as  a 
saloon  door  and  as  crooked  as  a  corkscrew. 
Three  different  houses  employed  me  as 
official  cheater.  In  two  of  them  I  used 
marked  cards.  In  the  other  my  partner 


42    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

and  I  worked  the  glass.  That  device  isn't 
used  very  often  now.  You  know  the 
"kitty"  in  a  poker  table — the  square  hole 
or  slit  at  the  center  into  which  you  slip  the 
house  percentage?  Well,  on  two  sides  of 
the  kitty  were  little  mirrors,  so  that  a  man 
sitting  opposite  either  of  them  could  see 
in  them  the  underside  of  the  cards  as  he 
dealt.  Those  mirrors  rested  away  down 
in  the  kitty  until  wanted  for  use ;  a  touch 
on  a  spring  inside  the  table-leg  brought 
them  to  position.  It  was  better  than 
marked  cards,  in  that  it  did  not  require  so 
much  concentration  to  follow  the  hands. 
On  your  deal,  you  could  read  and  remem 
ber  all  the  hands  in  a  game  of  five  players. 
I  was  kept  in  reserve  to  skin  good- 
things — rich  Easterners  with  a  roll,  usual 
ly.  When  such  a  man  showed  up  around 
any  of  the  three  houses  they  would  send 
a  hurry  call  for  me.  The  house  attended 
to  all  the  steering  and  fixing;  I  simply 
performed  the  operation  and  got  half  the 
money. 


CHEATING  WITH  MARKED  CARDS    43 

I  have  come,  through  experience,  to  be 
superstitious  about  one  thing:  a  great,  big 
stake  will  always  slip  through  my  fingers. 
I  could  land  a  moderate  winning,  up  to  a 
thousand  or  two;  but  whenever  I  started 
for  a  large  roll  something  would  happen. 
Those  fellows  who  skinned  that  rich  trust 
magnate  out  of  a  hundred  and  twenty 
thousand  dollars,  in  one  night  of  faro, 
sound  like  a  fairy  tale  to  me.  I  began  to 
notice  this  at  Hot  Springs.  The  president 
of  an  Eastern  flour  company  came  into 
town  on  a  tear,  throwing  his  money  right 
and  left.  One  of  my  houses  telephoned  to 
me;  they  had  him  playing,  and  he  was 
half-drunk.  I  worked  the  cold  deck  on 
him  all  that  night.  I  won  three  hundred 
and  fifty  dollars  in  cash  and  his  check  for 
eight  thousand  dollars.  I  went  to  bed 
stuck  on  myself. 

But  the  gambling-houses  were  squab 
bling  among  themselves;  my  boss,  whom 
we'll  call  Finnigan,  had  a  quarrel  over  the 
privileges  with  a  rival  whom  we'll  call 


44    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

Jones.  The  news  of  my  killing  got  around 
that  night.  Jones,  for  revenge,  telephoned 
to  my  sucker  first  thing  in  the  morning, 
telling  him  that  he  had  been  cheated.  The 
flour  man  had  the  check  stopped.  The 
same  identical  thing  happened  in  the  case 
of  a  young  Englishman,  holder  of  a  minor 
title,  whom  I  beat  out  of  five  thousand 
dollars  with  marked  cards. 

A   WINTER   AT   HOT   SPRINGS 

I  passed  the  next  winter  in  Hot  Springs. 
But  I  never  did  so  well  again.  I  was  get 
ting  too  well  known.  My  partner  and  I 
did  find  one  rich  sucker.  We  had  him  nib 
bling,  when  I  came  down  with  fever  and 
nearly  died.  My  partner,  as  I  afterward 
learned,  carried  the  deal  through  and  won 
sixteen  hundred  dollars.  He  skipped  with 
out  dividing,  leaving  me  broke  and  in  the 
hospital.  He  used  the  money  to  pay  off 
the  mortgage  on  his  mother's  farm. 
You've  heard  tell  of  honor  among  thieves. 


CHEATING  WITH  MARKED  CARDS    45 

I've  found  precious  little  of  it.  There  is 
generosity,  though.  Gamblers  are  always 
staking  their  busted  comrades.  Now  I 
met  that  very  man  two  years  later,  when 
I'd  been  against  faro  and  was  temporarily 
on  my  uppers ;  and  he  gave  me  a  hundred 
dollars. 

When  I  was  broke  or  sick  or  in  trouble 
I  naturally  turned  back  toward  Windville. 
I  was  only  a  young  boy,  after  all.  I  landed 
there  without  a  bean,  ready  for  any  en 
gagement.  And  just  then  old  Doctor 
Benedict  came  to  town  on  his  annual  visit. 
He  offered  me  a  partnership,  and  I  joined 
him. 

Old  Doctor  Benedict,  America's  Great 
est  Optician,  was  a  professional  card 
cheater,  who  used  the  spectacle  business 
as  a  blind.  Ahead  of  his  arrival  he  would 
insert  in  the  town  paper  an  advertisement 
which  read  something  like  this : 

Old  Doctor  Benedict,  the  Marvel 
ous  Optician,  is  Coming  With  His 


46    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

Australian  Pebble  Lenses,  the  Opti 
cal  Discovery  of  the  Age.  Corrects 
Errors  and  Aberrations  of  Vision 
Which  Have  Resisted  the  Skill  of  the 
Greatest  European  Surgeons.  Watch 
for  Old  Doctor  Benedict  and  His 
Corps  of  Expert  Assistants.  Palace 
Hotel,  Wednesday,  from  10  to  4. 

I  was  the  corps  of  assistants.  We'd 
arrive  with  five  trunks — four  empty,  and 
the  fifth  holding  our  clothes,  together  with 
a  line  of  cheap,  stock  spectacles,  graded  by 
ages.  The  doctor  would  pose  around  the 
lobby  in  a  tall  hat  and  a  long  coat,  and  I 
would  sit  behind  a  big  ledger  which  was 
one  of  our  properties.  When  the  customer 
appeared,  Doctor  Benedict  would  give 
him  a  fine  lecture  on  defective  vision,  and 
would  make  him  squint  at  a  set  of  alphabet 
cards.  I'd  be  busy  making  phony  entries 
in  the  ledger  as  the  Doctor  talked  them  off 
to  me.  In  the  course  of  his  hocus-pocus 
he  would  slip  in  the  real  question :  "How 


CHEATING  WITH  MARKED  CARDS    47 

old  are  you?"  We'll  suppose  that  the 
sucker  answered  "Fifty-two."  After  a 
little  more  guff,  Doctor  Benedict  would  go 
over  to  our  trunk  and  select  the  regular 
stock  spectacles  for  a  man  of  fifty-two. 
He'd  get  them  adjusted  with  a  lot  more 
phony  talk,  and  collect  whatever  the 
sucker  looked  to  be  good  for. 

From  this  public  position  we  were  able 
to  spy  out  the  poker-games  and  to  pose,  in 
towns  where  I  wasn't  known,  as  easy- 
marks.  We  did  pretty  well,  but  I  hated 
him  worse  than  a  rattlesnake,  for  he  held 
out  profits  and  had  disgusting  habits.  His 
finish  was  funny.  He  worked  up  such  a 
reputation  for  his  Australian  Pebble 
Lenses  that  it  paid  him  to  cut  out  gam 
bling  altogether,  and  devote  himself 
wholly  to  the  spectacle  business. 

THE  LUCK  OF  SLIPPERY  SILLS 

My  last  regular  partner  in  card  cheating 
was  Slippery  Sills,  with  whom  I'd  done  a 


48    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

turn  here  and  there  ever  since  I  broke  in. 
Slippery  was  good  at  his  trade,  but  an 
awful  drunkard.  He  had  the  nerve  of  the 
damned.  They  tell  this  story  of  him:  A 
little  gambling-house  in  Missouri  kept 
posted  on  the  wall  an  offer  of  a  silk  hat  for 
every  straight  flush.  Let  me  tell  you,  a 
straight  flush  is  an  uncommon  hand  in 
poker.  In  all  my  experiences  I've  never 
known  one  to  be  held  on  the  square.  Well, 
Slippery  was  playing  cold  decks  there  one 
night.  He  cleaned  out  every  one  in  the 
place.  I  guess  they  knew  he  was  a  cheater, 
but  the  principle  of  that  house  was  to  let 
a  man  go  for  one  sitting,  and  bar  him 
afterward.  When  every  one  had  enough, 
Slippery  looked  up  and  saw,  that  sign. 
"Let's  play  a  sociable  game  for  a  quarter 
limit,"  he  said;  "I  need  a  silk  hat."  On 
the  second  hand  he  showed  a  straight  flush. 
Inside  of  an  hour  he  had  won  eight  silk 
hats  on  eight  straight  flushes  and  no  one 
could  tell  how  he  did  it. 

I  was  barred  once  from  a  good  game  in 


CHEATING  WITH  MARKED  CARDS  49 

Springfield,  Missouri.  I  went  over  to  St. 
Louis  and  found  Slippery.  He  was  flat 
broke.  I  offered  to  stake  him  and  take  him 
into  the  Springfield  game.  He  accepted. 
If  I  remember  right,  I  gave  him  a  hundred 
dollars.  About  midnight  I  wandered  over 
to  that  house  to  see  how  things  were  going. 
While  I  was  barred  from  playing,  they 
were  glad  to  see  me  personally.  Slippery 
Sills  was  looking  over  a  whole  breastwork 
of  chips. 

He  didn't  seem  to  need  any  assist 
ance  from  me ;  so  I  went  back  to  the  hotel 
and  turned  in.  I  woke  early.  Slippery 
hadn't  come  in  yet.  I  dressed  and  went 
out  to  look  for  him.  I  found  him  asleep  on 
the  billiard-table  in  the  barroom,  without 
a  dollar  in  his  clothes.  He  had  been  drink 
ing  while  he  played.  Along  toward  morn 
ing  the  booze  had  got  to  him.  The  house 
had  rung  in  another  cheater  on  him  at  this 
point,  and  had  taken  away  all  his  win 
nings,  and  my  hundred  besides. 

One  morning  about  eight  years  ago  I 


50    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

stood  on  the  station  platform  at  Seymour. 
A  freight  train  pulled  in,  and  a  frightful 
specimen  of  a  hobo  rolled  off  from  the 
brake-beam.  He  saw  me  watching  him, 
and  he  struck  me  at  once  for  a  quarter. 
His  face  touched  a  button  in  my  memory 
somewhere.  I  looked  him  over  carefully, 
and  recognized  what  was  left  of  Slippery 
Sills.  He  got  five  dollars. 

In  the  spring  of  1886  I  made  acquaint 
ance  with  a  grafter  who  ran  the  O'Leary 
Belt  for  a  circus.  He  persuaded  me  that 
circus  graft  had  card  cheating  beaten 
forty  ways.  I  listened  to  his  spiel,  and  it 
ended  in  my  taking  a  job  as  his  booster 
handler  with  the  promise  of  a  partnership 
as  soon  as  I  learned  the  game. 

He  gave  me  the  circus  fever ;  for  several 
years  from  that  time  I  was  never  happy 
away  from  the  smell  of  sawdust. 


CHAPTER  II 

I  JOIN  THE  CIRCUS  AND  ELOPE  WITH 
MINNIE,  THE  ELEPHANT 

T  GUESS  what  I  have  to  say  about 
•*•  circuses  will  amount  to  exposing  the 
show  business.  People  in  general  know 
very  little  about  it.  They  suppose  that 
the  profits  come  from  the  ticket  wagon, 
with  perhaps  a  little  extra  for  short 
change,  peanuts  and  pink  lemonade.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  eight  out  of  every  ten  dol 
lars  of  profit  have  come  in  the  past  from 
confidence  outfits  and  crooked  gambling 
games,  which  follow  the  show  and  are  as 
much  a  part  of  its  business  as  the  ele 
phants.  I  know  a  retired  circus  man  who 
is  living  quietly  on  the  interest  of  a  million 
dollars.  Three-quarters  of  that,  I  figure, 
he  made  from  the  gambling  games. 
Another  old-timer  pulled  out  with  a  for- 

51 


52    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

tune,  which  he  has  multiplied  many  times 
in  real  estate  and  theatrical  investments. 
I  believe  that  he  made  all  his  early  fortune 
out  of  the  graft  end  of  his  business.  The 
three  big  shows  which  have  survived — 
Barnum  &  Bailey,  Ringling  Brothers  and 
Buffalo  Bill — have  never  allowed  gam 
bling.  This  proves  what  I've  said  before 
—the  honest  game  is  the  long  game. 

As  a  general  rule,  the  smaller  the  circus 
the  more  corrupt  it  is  in  this  respect. 
Many  of  the  little  ones  have  been  run  by 
confidence  men  simply  as  blinds  for  skin 
games.  In  my  time  there  was  a  regular 
system  of  profit-sharing  between  the  gam 
blers  and  the  show.  At  the  head  of  the 
outfit  stood  the  "fixer,"  whose  job  it  was 
to  bribe  or  stall  city  officials  so  that  the 
gamblers  could  proceed  with  reasonable 
security,  and  to  square  it  with  the  suckers. 
He  got  ten  per  cent  of  the  gross  profits — 
and  he  earned  his  money.  The  rest  was 
divided  on  various  plans,  but  the  circus 
usually  got  from  thirty-five  to  forty  per 


I  JOIN  THE  CIRCUS  53 

cent  of  the  net  proceeds  from  all  games. 

WHEELS   WITHIN   WHEELS 

The  show  which  I  joined  first  was  a 
smaller  edition  of  one  of  the  big  circuses. 
It  traveled  under  another  name,  but  under 
the  same  management.  The  main  show  in 
this  combination  was  somewhat  cautious 
about  gambling.  The  little  show  ran  it 
wide  open.  Hambridge,  my  first  boss,  for 
whom  I  worked  as  booster  handler,  ran  the 
O'Leary  Belt.  If  you  have  never  seen  this 
game  worked  it  will  be  hard  to  describe  it 
to  you.  The  operator  stood  in  a  buggy. 
Cocked  up  in  front  of  him  was  a  circle  of 
little  boxes,  strung  around  a  wheel.  He 
lifted  the  covers  of  the  boxes  and  showed 
that  one  box  contained  a  ten-dollar  bill, 
three  or  four,  five-dollar  bills,  and  a  few 
more,  one-dollar  bills.  The  rest  were 
empty.  Then  he  closed  the  covers,  spun 
the  wheel,  and  let  the  players  touch,  with 
a  buggy  whip,  the  boxes  which  they 
thought  contained  prizes.  The  first  stake 


54    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

was  fifty  cents;  but  by  working  the  old 
"conditional"  racket  you  could  make  a 
soft  sucker  double  and  double  until  he  had 
his  whole  pile  staked. 

There  was  a  false  back  and  an  inner 
wheel  in  this  apparatus;  that  was  why  it 
was  set  up  in  a  buggy — the  height  pre 
vented  the  players  from  seeing  the  inner 
wheel  at  work.  The  operator  controlled 
that  inner  wheel  from  a  knob  concealed  in 
some  inconspicuous  place  about  the  ap 
paratus.  So  after  the  outer  wheel  had 
stopped  and  the  player  had  picked  his  box, 
the  operator,  by  turning  that  inner  wheel, 
could  make  him  win  or  lose  exactly  as  he 
pleased. 

THE   BOOSTER  AND    HIS   BUSINESS 

Good,  scientific  boosting  is  the  secret  of 
success  in  such  a  game.  The  smart  gran 
ger  is  disposed  at  first  to  regard  the  propo 
sition  as  a  fake.  But  when  he  sees  Hiram 
Jones'  boy  come  up  and  play  and  collect 


I  JOIN  THE  CIRCUS  55 

he  begins  to  think  that  there  is  something 
in  it.     As  booster  handler,  I  picked  up 
four  or  five  men  in  every  town  we  struck, 
and  gave  them  two  dollars  apiece  and  a 
ticket  to  the  show  for  their  services.     I'd 
have  them  grouped  around  me — two  or 
three  in  front  and  one  on  each  side — just 
where  I  could  whisper  them  directions  and 
pass  money  back  and  forth.    It  wasn't  an 
easy  job  by  any  means.    It  needs  as  much 
art  to  steer  the  boosters  properly  as  to  run 
the  game  itself.    You  must  know  how  to 
pick  your  sucker,  how  to  see  the  opening 
to  his  mind  like  a  flash  of  lightning,  and 
how  to  choose  the  psychological  moment 
to  have  your  assistants  pull  off  big  win 
nings.  It  is  a  great  term,  that  "psychologi 
cal  moment."    To  know  it  when  it  arrives 
is  the  kernel  of  the  business  of  grafting. 

In  the  first  week  I  made  a  big  mistake 
and  learned  a  lesson.  The  boss  told  me 
to  watch  the  boosters  carefully,  and  take 
away  their  winnings  the  moment  they 
collected,  because  some  of  them  might 


56    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

walk  off  with  a  big  wad.  I  said,  "They 
haven't  got  the  sand,  those  fellows." 
"Never  you  mind,"  said  Hambridge;  "you 
collar  them  just  the  same."  Right  after 
that  I  got  interested  in  leading  on  a 
country  sport.  I  tipped  off  one  of  my 
men.  The  booster  kept  doubling  and  win 
ning  until  he  had  fifty  dollars.  The  sucker 
bit,  and  lost  fifty  dollars  himself;  after 
which  he  raised  a  big  row  and  I  had  to 
stall  with  him  to  keep  him  quiet.  When 
I  had  lost  him,  I  looked  for  the  booster 
who  had  made  the  winning.  He  was  gone, 
and  I  never  saw  him  or  the  fifty  dollars 
again.  Well,  sir,  I  don't  know  when  I 
ever  felt  so  bad  about  losing  a  little  money. 
I  wouldn't  have  minded  dropping  it  on 
faro,  but  to  be  done  out  of  it  that  way! 
That  was  my  last  mistake.  I  made  my 
self  so  useful  that  they  gave  me  an  interest 
in  one  of  the  shell  games.  I  had  no  more 
than  started  when  the  big  row  broke  out. 
Circus  grafters  have  to  be  fighters;  the 
trouble  with  them  is  that  they  will  fight 


I  made  myself  so  useful  that  they  gave  me  an  interest  in 
one  of  the  shell  games 


I  JOIN   THE   CIRCUS  57 

for  the  love  of  it  even  when  a  row  is  bad 
business.  And  that  was  an  exceptionally 
tough  lot — Hambridge  was  about  the  only 
decent  man  among  them.  The  head  shell- 
worker  had  done  time  for  manslaughter. 
He  lost  his  foot  through  an  accident  in 
the  penitentiary,  and  got  pardoned  out  on 
account  of  it.  Another,  whom  we  called 
the  Shanghai  Kid,  was  a  dope  fiend,  and 
not  ashamed  to  admit  it.  When  the  stuff 
was  in  him  he  was  pretty  dangerous.  At 
Fairbury,  one  Sunday  afternoon,  the  kid 
and  some  of  his  pals  got  into  a  row  in  the 
park.  They  drew  the  town  boys  into  it. 
It  grew  into  a  riot.  That  made  so  much 
talk  that  news  of  it  reached  the  manager 
of  the  big  show.  He  said,  "If  those  fel 
lows  can't  behave,  there  is  no  money  in 
them."  And  the  next  thing  we  were  all 
fired. 

WORKING  THE  RAILROAD  TRAINS 

I  pieced  out  the  season  playing  high 
hands  on  railroad  trains.  That  was  a  good 


58    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

game  once,  but  it  had  a  short  life.  I  can 
remember,  though,  when  twenty  or  thirty 
gangs  played  it.  Euchre  was  as  popular 
then  as  bridge  is  now.  We  traveled  to 
gether,  Bill  Ireland  and  I,  and  met,  as 
old  friends  long  separated,  in  the  presence 
of  the  sucker.  We'd  get  up  a  four-handed 
euchre  game.  When  we  got  ready  for  the 
joint  ["the  joint"  is  a  term  used  by  confi 
dence  men  to  describe  the  actual  operation 
by  which  the  victim's  money  is  taken 
away]  I  would  deal  my  partner  three 
kings,  say,  and  myself  three  tens.  My 
partner  would  laugh  and  say : 

"I'm  sorry  we  aren't  playing  poker." 

"So  am  I,"  I'd  say.  "Suppose,  with  the 
permission  of  the  rest,  we  pass  this  deal 
and  make  it  a  poker  show  down." 

"I'm  on  for  a  five,"  my  partner  would 
say.  We'd  show  down,  and  he'd  win. 

Perhaps  we'd  do  it  again  before,  off 
toward  the  end  of  the  sitting,  I'd  give  the 
sucker  a  big  hand  and  myself  a  bigger,  and 
lead  him  on  to  play  all  his  roll. 


I  JOIN  THE  CIRCUS  59 

The  following  winter  I  did  the  last 
thing  approaching  straight  business  that 
I  touched  for  twenty  years.  I  fell  in  with 
a  newspaper  man  whom  we  call  Howard. 
He  was  traveling  through  Ohio  and  Indi 
ana  soliciting  advertising  write-ups,  and 
he  thought  I  would  make  a  good  assistant. 
I  joined  him — not  for  the  money  in  so 
liciting  but  on  account  of  the  blind  it  gave 
me  for  poker  cheating.  I  will  say  that  I 
landed  more  straight  business  that  he  did. 
He  is  editor  of  a  city  newspaper  now;  and 
I  don't  think  he  suspects  yet  what  his  as 
sistant  did  when  we  parted  of  nights.  At 
Hillsboro,  Ohio,  I  beat  a  New  York 
diamond  salesman  out  of  his  wad  and  three 
of  his  best  samples — a  private  game  of 
poker — cold  deck. 

I  got  acquainted,  on  that  trip,  with  one 
of  the  nicest,  whitest  girls  I  ever  knew. 
She  thought  I  was  perfectly  straight;  and 
whenever  I  came  to  her  town  I  was.  I 
hadn't  the  heart  to  do  any  grafting  in  her 
neighborhood.  The  last  time  I  came  to 


60    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

visit  her  I  found  she  had  typhoid  fever.  I 
thought  it  all  out,  and  determined  to  go 
away  right  there  and  never  let  her  know 
where  I  had  gone.  It  wasn't  right  for 
me  to  stay  friends  with  her,  because  she 
was  straight  and  white,  and  thought  I  was 
on  the  level. 

And  when  spring  broke  I  was  back  with 
a  circus  again. 

This  was  a  little,  crippled,  wagon-show. 
The  man  who  owned  it  had  been  in  the 
circus  business  years  before,  but  not  long 
enough  to  learn  it  thoroughly.  He'd  made 
some  money  with  vaudeville  houses  and 
used  it  to  go  back  to  the  circus  business, 
which  fascinates  every  one  who  touches  it. 
At  the  very  beginning  he  was  cheated  on 
his  stock.  His  horses  were  bony  old  plugs 
who  had  been  starved  all  winter  and 
started  out  in  bad  condition  for  a  hard 
summer's  work.  Before  we  had  traveled 
a  week  they  were  dropping  by  the  road 
side,  and  we  commenced  to  be  late  with 
our  engagements. 


I  JOIN  THE  CIRCUS  61 

I  began  as  fixer.  Then  the  man  with 
the  gambling  privileges  proved  to  be  no 
good.  I  volunteered  to  take  that  job  in 
addition  to  my  fixing.  I  managed  to  find 
a  fair  O'Leary  Wheel  man,  a  good  shell 
operator  and  a  passable  head  booster  from 
my  acquaintances  on  the  road.  In  a  week 
or  two  the  games  were  just  about  the 
whole  show. 

It  was  a  terribly  hot,  dry  summer. 
More  and  more  horses  died.  We  hadn't 
the  ready  money  to  replace  them  all,  and 
that  overworked  the  stock  we  had  left. 
We  were  forced  to  cut  out  towns  in  which 
we'd  been  billed  for  three  weeks,  simply 
because  we  couldn't  keep  to  our  schedule. 
We  lacked  experienced  men  in  every  de 
partment — it  was  all  gilly  help,  with  no 
one  to  educate  the  new  hands.  And  the 
Boss  was  simply  incompetent.  There 
come  times  when  a  man  has  to  take  hold 
himself,  regardless  of  his  official  position. 
My  end  of  the  show  was  the  only  bright 
spot,  but  every  cent  I  made  I  poured  back 


62    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

into  the  treasury  to  pay  salaries  and  to 
kill  attachments  for  feed  and  supplies. 
So  I  promoted  myself  to  be  general 
manager. 


INTRODUCING    JAKEY,    THE   GRAFTER 

Troubles  began  to  multiply  just  after 
the  Fourth  of  July.  We  were  playing 
along  the  Ohio  River,  making  toward 
Iowa.  The  Boss  had  gone  to  Chicago  to 
see  about  raising  money.  I  was  in  practi 
cal  charge.  As  we  pulled  up  stakes  in  the 
early  morning  of  the  fifth,  dead  beat  from 
the  extra  work  of  a  holiday  performance, 
I  rode  past  the  cage  which  held  our  two 
best  lions — we  had  only  three.  These  were 
fine  yonng  males.  I  noticed  that  a  boy 
was  driving  them.  As  I  passed  him  I 
asked : 

"How's  your  stock?" 

"All  right,"  he  said.  I  had  referred  to 
the  lions ;  he  took  it  that  I  was  referring  to 


I  JOIN  THE  CIRCUS  63 

the  horses.  I  thought  it  strange  that  the 
menagerie  superintendent  would  leave  the 
lions  to  a  kid,  but  I  had  other  things  on 
my  mind,  and  I  rode  on  forward. 

When  we  made  camp  the  superinten 
dent  came  to  me  with  his  face  all  white, 
and  said : 

"The  lions  are  dead." 

The  regular  lion  man  had  gone  on  a 
Fourth  of  July  bat,  and  was  dead  to  the 
world  in  the  cook-wagon  when  the  show 
moved.  They'd  put  on  the  boy  because  he 
was  the  only  extra  hand.  He  had  care 
lessly  closed  the  ventilators  at  the  back. 
So  the  lions  crowded  up  to  the  front  venti 
lator  for  air ;  and  when  they  began  to  roar 
he  had  kicked  it  shut  to  keep  them  quiet. 
Then  the  lions  just  naturally  lay  down 
and  died  of  suffocation. 

It  wasn't  my  fault,  and  neither  was  I 
responsible,  being  only  practical  and  not 
nominal  manager  of  that  show;  but  it 
bothered  me  a  whole  lot.  I  hated  to  think 
of  breaking  the  news  to  the  Boss. 


64-    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

The  next  day  was  a  baking,  boiling-hot 
Saturday.  Five  canvasmen  were  sun- 
struck  getting  up  the  tent,  and  the  stock 
was  absolutely  exhausted.  I  determined 
to  rest  the  show  over  Saturday  night  and 
Sunday,  and  to  move  to  the  next  stop  on 
Sunday  night.  As  I  rode  out  ahead,  se 
lecting  a  road,  those  lions  stayed  on  my 
mind.  Actually,  I  got  to  grieving  over 
them  as  if  they  had  been  people.  It  seemed 
such  a  deuce  of  a  death  for  a  lion! 

Before  dark  it  began  to  rain.  You  don't 
know  what  irritation  and  misery  are  until 
you've  tried  to  move  a  crippled  circus  on 
a  wet  night.  I  had  chosen  a  road  which 
ran  along  the  bluffs  of  the  river ;  and  as  we 
turned  into  it  I  lit  a  torch  and  rode  up  and 
down,  directing  the  canvasmen  who  were 
digging  out  stalled  wagons.  I  lost  a  shoe 
in  the  mud,  fished  for  it,  couldn't  find  it, 
and  went  on,  mounting  and  dismounting 
in  one  stockinged  foot.  And  somehow,  the 
more  miserable  I  got  the  more  I  thought 
of  those  two  dead  lions. 


I  JOIN  THE  CIRCUS  65 

A  big  baggage-wagon  got  stuck  for  fair. 
It  made  a  gap  in  the  procession.  I  rode 
down  a  pitch-dark  piece  of  road  to  tell  the 
leading  wagons  to  wait  for  us.  All  of  a 
sudden,  my  pony  snorted  and  shied  as 
though  he  had  seen  the  devil.  My  stock 
inged  foot  flew  out  of  the  stirrup,  and 
over  his  head  I  went.  I  landed  splosh  in 
the  mud;  my  torch  fell  into  a  puddle  and 
went  out.  I  caught  my  pony's  bridle, 
hooked  it  over  my  arm,  started  to  jerk  him 
toward  me — and  fell  over  something  big 
and  warm  and  alive.  I  put  out  my  free 
hand — and  felt  a  stiff,  scrubby  mane.  I 
thought  it  was  a  lion.  It  flashed  across  me 
that  the  third  lion  had  got  loose — and  there 
I  was  alone  with  him  in  the  dark.  I  threw 
off  the  bridle,  and  my  hand  hit  the  shaft  of 
the  torch.  I  grabbed  it,  backed  up  the 
hill,  and  prepared  to  poke  it  into  his 
mouth  whenever  the  gleam  of  his  eyes 
showed  that  he  was  coming  to  me. 
And  I  yelled  like  a  steam-boat  whistle. 
It  seemed  like  a  year  had  passed  before 


66    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

a  boy  came  riding  along  with  a  torch. 

The  thing  I  had  fallen  over  was  a  camel 
— a  sick  camel  whose  keeper  had  gone  back 
on  him.  I  had  lion  on  the  brain — that  was 
all.  While  I  stood  just  gaping  at  him,  he 
grunted  and  got  up.  It  had  been  the  big 
gest  scare  of  my  life ;  and,  at  the  sight  of 
that  old  caricature  of  an  animal,  it  turned 
into  the  biggest  mad  of  my  life.  He  was 
standing  on  the  edge  of  the  bluff  over  the 
river.  I  jumped  into  him  with  all  my 
strength,  and  over  the  bank  he  went. 
Later  the  Boss  put  him  down  to  my  ac 
count. 

Years  afterward  I  found  that  camel  liv 
ing  peacefully  on  the  town  common.  It 
appears  that  he  crawled  out  of  the  river 
and  was  captured  next  morning  by  a  milk 
man,  who  presented  him  to  the  town  as  the 
nucleus  for  a  zoological  garden. 

By  the  time  we  reached  Davenport, 
Iowa,  we  were  about  all  in.  I  hadn't  a 
cent  to  show  for  my  summer.  The  Boss 
was  ready  to  quit.  But  there  it  was,  not 


I  JOIN  THE  CIRCUS  67 

yet  August,  with  three  months  more  to 
run,  and  the  gambling  worth  five  thou 
sand  a  month  to  me  if  we  could  ever  get 
the  show  clear.  I  happened  to  hear  that 
a  grafter  whom  we'll  call  Jakey  was  in 
Iowa  just  then.  To  my  certain  knowledge 
Jakey  had  four  thousand  dollars.  I  got 
him  by  telegraph,  and  represented  to  him 
that,  if  he  would  put  in  his  four  thousand, 
we  could  load  on  to  a  train  and  make  a 
fresh  start  in  the  South,  where  they  were 
howling  for  a  circus  that  summer.  In 
return,  I  offered  him  half  of  the  privileges. 
Jakey  accepted.  We  proceeded  by  rail  to 
a  Southern  city  not  far  from  Mason  and 
Dixon's  Line. 

WORKING  ON   THE  SHERIFF'S  SYMPATHIES 

There  our  finish  came  suddenly.  At  the 
very  railroad  yards  we  were  held  up  by  a 
bunch  of  lawyers.  They  had  attachments 
covering  every  hoof  and  claw,  stitch  and 
splinter.  Maybe  you  don't  like  the  way 


68    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

I  talk  about  lawyers,  but  you'd  feel  differ 
ent  if  you'd  ever  passed  it  out  to  them 
from  the  other  side  of  the  bars,  the  way 
I've  had  to  do. 

All  that  day  I  stalled  around  with  the 
sheriff  trying  to  see  what  could  be  done. 
He  was  a  good  fellow,  and  he  sympathized 
when  I  explained  to  him  that  Jakey  and 
I  were  the  two  creditors  who  couldn't 
recover  anything  from  the  wreck.  But 
he  couldn't  suggest  any  way  out  of  it. 
We  were  short  of  grub  in  the  cook-tents, 
and  the  lawyers  wouldn't  even  make  us  an 
allowance  for  anything  to  eat.  Most  of 
the  canvasmen  were  fed  at  the  almshouse 
that  day.  Along  in  the  afternoon,  while 
the  sheriff  and  I  were  talking  it  over,  I 
heard  the  sound  of  crying  in  the  perform 
er's  tent.  I  went  in  to  investigate.  The 
bareback  rider  was  sitting  with  her  sick 
baby  on  her  knees,  wailing,  "What  shall 
I  do?"  She  hadn't  eaten  anything  that 
day,  and  had  just  used  up  the  last  of  her 
condensed  milk  for  the  baby.  I  went  out 


I  JOIN  THE  CIRCUS  69 

and  pawned  my  watch  for  twenty  dollars 
and  gave  her  half  of  it.  While  I  didn't  do 
that  for  a  play  at  the  sheriff,  it  helped  a 
lot  to  soften  him  toward  me  and  to  make 
him  hate  the  lawyers.  After  we'd  had 
some  dinner  together,  I  got  him  to  admit 
that  more  was  coming  to  me  than  was 
coming  to  the  other  creditors.  When  I 
brought  him  to  that  frame  of  mind  I  said  : 

"Now,  I'll  tell  you  what  I  want  you  to 
do.  Only  one  elephant  in  this  show  is 
worth  a  whoop.  It's  that  little  Indian, 
Minnie.  Also,  there  are  three  or  four 
ring-horses.  Those  lawyers  haven't  an 
inventory.  The  only  person  who  will  miss 
them  if  they  happen  to  walk  off  in  the 
night  will  be  the  Boss,  and  he  will  keep  his 
mouth  shut.  Suppose  the  deputy  you 
leave  on  guard  tonight  should  go  to  sleep 
at  his  post?" 

The  sheriff  studied  quite  a  while. 

"You'll  have  to  make  it  good  with  him," 
he  said.  Without  waiting  for  anything 
more  I  went  straight  to  find  Jakey.  He 


70    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

had  been  around  the  show  all  day,  telling 
his  troubles  to  whoever  would  listen.  I 
knew  that  Jakey,  no  matter  how  he  hol 
lered  about  being  broke,  was  one  of  those 
fellows  who  always  kept  a  hundred  dollars 
buried.  I  told  him  about  the  scheme.  He 
was  harder  to  persuade  than  the  sheriff, 
especially  when  it  came  to  the  hundred 
dollars.  But  the  more  he  swore  he  was 
broke,  the  more  I  swore  that  he  had  a  bill 
buried;  and,  after  a  while,  he  dug  it  up 
from  his  watch-pocket.  I  passed  fifty  to 
the  sheriff  for  his  man,  and  kept  fifty  for 
current  expenses. 

"Where  are  you  going  to  sell  her?" 
asked  Jakey  when  I  came  back  and  re 
ported  that  the  deal  was  framed.  I  had 
thought  that  out.  I  knew  a  horse-trader 
in  Philadelphia,  a  former  circus  man,  who 
would  buy  stock  if  he  knew  it  was  stolen 
from  his  own  grandmother. 

At  midnight  Jakey  and  I  proceeded 
past  the  sleeping  deputy  to  the  menagerie 
tent.  First  I  cut  out  the  four  ring  ponies. 


I  JOIN  THE  CIRCUS  71 

That  was  easy.  When  we  got  them  out 
side  Jakey  developed  a  case  of  cold  feet. 
He  wouldn't  go  back  with  me  for  the  ele 
phant,  and  he  didn't  want  me  to  go. 

GOOD-NATURED  LITTLE  MINNIE 

"Look  here,"  said  I,  "you  know  what 
happens  to  horse-thieves  back  in  our  coun 
try.  Well,  you're  already  a  horse-thief. 
But  stealing  an  elephant  is  stealing  a 
circus,  and  stealing  a  circus  is  only  plain 
grand  larceny.  If  you  don't  want  her, 
take  those  ponies  along  the  road  toward 
Baltimore,  and  I'll  follow  on  with  the 
elephant."  Jakey  was  only  too  glad  to  get 
his  discharge.  I  led  out  an  elephant  pony, 
tied  him  to  a  tent  stake,  found  a  hook,  and 
went  back  for  Minnie.  She  seemed  to 
think  the  proceeding  a  little  irregular,  but 
some  soft  persuasion  around  the  ear  got 
her  started.  I  didn't  dare  hook  her  under 
the  trunk,  because  an  elephant  will  some 
times  trumpet  if  you  do  that.  I  don't 


72    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

think  I  should  have  taken  risks  with  her 
if  I  had  been  longer  in  the  circus  business. 
Elephants  are  the  most  dangerous  things 
about  a  menagerie.  Ten  men  are  killed 
by  them  to  one  that  gets  it  from  the  big 
cats.  But  Minnie  was  a  good-natured 
little  thing  without  a  trace  of  rogue  in  her. 
I  drove  her  fast  down  the  road,  and  in  half 
an  hour  I  caught  up  with  Jakey  and  the 
ponies. 

I  walked  Minnie  as  hard  as  I  could 
make  her  go,  driving  up  with  the  pony 
part  of  the  time,  and,  when  she  lagged, 
mounting  her  head  and  persuading  her 
with  the  hook.  The  circus  was  placarded 
for  about  twenty  miles.  That,  I  figured, 
was  the  danger-belt;  if  I  could  get  away 
from  our  paper  the  trick  was  half  turned. 
By  the  time  the  sun  was  high  we  had 
passed  the  last  poster. 

The  day  came  off  terribly  hot.  We 
were  on  a  hard  macadam  road,  and  Minnie 
couldn't  find  a  handful  of  dust  to  blow  the 
flies  off  herself.  She  began  to  get  irritated, 


I  JOIN  THE  CIRCUS  73 

but  still  I  jabbed  her  on.  Jakey  gave  me 
no  help — he  hadn't  any  stomach  for  ele 
phants.  She  took  to  stopping  and  lifting 
her  feet  to  show  that  her  toes  were  sore. 
But  I  prodded  away  at  her,  trying  to  make 
all  the  distance  that  I  could. 

Just  when  I  began  to  wonder  if  I  hadn't 
better  give  her  a  little  rest  for  breakfast, 
Minnie  looked  over  into  a  field  and  saw  a 
duck  pond.  She  turned  and  charged  for  it 
straight  through  two  lines  of  snake  fence, 
with  me  hanging  by  the  hook  to  her  ear. 
When  we  reached  the  water's  edge  I 
dropped  her.  She  kept  straight  on  to  the 
middle  of  the  pond,  had  a  bath  and  a 
drink,  and  stood  there,  weaving.  The 
farmer  came  along  and  collected  seven 
dollars  for  the  fence.  It  wasn't  worth 
seventy  cents,  but  we  couldn't  afford  to 
dispute  it  with  him.  I  made  him  throw  in 
a  half -bale  of  hay.  I  put  that  out  on  the 
bank  and  tossed  it  temptingly  before 
Minnie.  She  cocked  her  little  eye  at  it; 
but  she  saw  through  my  steer  and  re- 


74    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

mained  planted  in  the  center  of  the  pond. 
I  mounted  the  elephant  pony  and  tried 
to  urge  him  into  the  water.  He  knew  ele 
phants  and  their  ways  better  than  I ;  when 
ever  he  got  to  the  brink  he'd  shy  and 
refuse  to  go  a  step. 

Jakey  sat  on  the  fence  and  asked  me 
why  I  didn't  go  in  for  her  on  foot.  That 
was  just  like  him.  I  cussed  him;  but  I 
took  off  my  shoes  and  tried  it.  Minnie 
waited  until  I  had  waded  out  to  my  hips ; 
then  she  sucked  up  a  trunkf  ul  of  water  and 
let  me  have  it  square  in  the  face.  It  was 
like  standing  up  to  a  fire  hose.  I  waded 
out  again,  and  again  she  doused  me.  I 
came  out  spluttering  and  told  Jakey  that 
it  was  his  turn.  He  took  a  pole,  and  stood 
on  the  edge  of  the  pond,  and  poked  at  her. 
Minnie  wheeled  and  doused  him,  too.  It 
became  plain  that  Minnie  didn't  propose 
to  move  until  she  got  good  and  ready. 

So  we  bought  some  provisions  of  the 
farmer,  established  watches,  and  had  a 
little  sleep  in  our  wet  clothes.  Minnie, 


I  JOIN  THE  CIRCUS  75 

standing  up  and  weaving,  elephant  fash 
ion,  had  a  nap  on  her  own  account. 

THE  CIRCUS  THAT  DISAPPEARED 

Late  in  the  afternoon,  when  it  had 
cooled  off,  and  when  Minnie  had  soaked 
the  soreness  out  of  her  feet,  she  just 
naturally  walked  out  and  stood  by  the 
gap  of  the  fence  and  waited  to  be  driven 
on.  We  gave  her  some  hay,  and  resumed 
the  march.  I  guess  she  had  better  sense 
than  Jakey  and  I.  Probably  if  we  had 
kept  on  driving  her  at  that  pace  we  would 
have  killed  her. 

For  five  days  and  nights  we  drove 
Minnie  toward  Baltimore,  making  as  much 
of  the  distance  as  we  could  by  night.  We 
told  the  farmers  that  we  were  circus  men 
with  a  performing  elephant  act,  going 
down  to  join  our  show  at  Baltimore.  I 
found  from  them  just  how  to  avoid  the 
towns,  making  the  excuse  that  she  scared 
the  horses. 


76    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

We  reached  Baltimore  without  so  much 
as  a  word  from  the  lawyers.  From  there 
we  shipped  the  whole  outfit  C.  O.  D.  to 
Philadelphia,  and  sold  out  to  the  horse- 
trader  for  twenty-five  hundred  dollars. 
Minnie  alone  was  worth  three  thousand 
dollars,  but  we  had  to  take  what  we  could 
get.  In  later  years  Jakey  threw  me  down 
hard,  and  I  might  have  foreseen  it 
from  the  way  he  acted  on  that  trip.  Why, 
when  we  made  our  divvy  he  kicked  on 
sending  one  hundred  dollars  to  the 
sheriff! 

I  guess  that  was  the  longest  circus 
parade  on  record — except  one.  An  old- 
time  circus  man  named  O'Brien  once  had 
his  show  attached  in  a  town  of  Maryland, 
just  over  the  border  from  Pennsylvania. 
It  was  tied  up  completely;  but  he  was  nice 
and  cordial  about  it.  He  told  the  lawyers 
that  he  would  go  right  on  with  the  per 
formance,  making  as  much  money  for 
them  as  he  could  until  they  sent  some  one 
else  to  take  charge.  When  time  came  to 


I  JOIN  THE  CIRCUS  77 

get  out  the  parade  he  went  from  wagon  to 
wagon,  saying  to  the  boys : 

"Now  get  everything  out  and  make  as 
fine  a  showing  as  we  can ;  we  want  to  help 
these  people."  The  lawyers  stood  around 
and  approved  of  his  gameness.  The  boys 
got  pretty  nearly  everything  except  the 
tents  and  the  seats  in  that  parade.  The 
steerer  stayed  behind  and  entertained  the 
lawyers  in  the  big  tent.  When  the  parade 
had  got  to  the  end  of  the  main  street  it 
kept  right  on — over  the  bridge  into  Penn 
sylvania.  The  last  wagon  was  safe  out  of 
Maryland  before  the  lawyers  woke  up. 
O'Brien  couldn't  show  in  Pennsylvania 
because  he  had  left  his  tents  behind;  and 
O'Brien's  parade  traveled  one  hundred 
and  thirty  miles  into  Philadelphia. 

That  winter  I  did  my  only  turn  with  the 
poolrooms.  The  game  was  the  one  from 
which  wire  tapping  has  been  developed. 
The  racing  returns  to  the  West  used  all  to 
come  through  New  York.  Our  gang  had 
corrupted  a  New  York  operator.  He  was 


78    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

to  hold  back  the  winning  flash  from  the 
Western  poolrooms,  and  indicate,  by  a 
series  of  signals  in  the  preliminary  news, 
just  what  that  winner  was.  One  of  the 
signals  will  stand  as  an  example  for  the 
rest.  Suppose  the  word  came:  "Scotch 
Plaid  is  kicking  at  the  post."  It  meant 
that  the  horse  two  numbers  down  from 
Scotch  Plaid  on  the  official  list,  Visalia, 
we'll  say,  had  won.  After  an  interval  long 
enough  for  us  to  get  down  bets,  the  real 
flash  would  come — "Visalia  Wins." 

The  scheme  Was  hatched  in  Omaha. 
The  members  of  the  gang  were  too  well 
known  as  grafters  to  do  the  playing  them 
selves.  They  took  up  with  a  young  real- 
estate  man  named  Singleterry  who  had 
been  a  regular  poolroom  player,  and  sent 
him  down  to  Kansas  City.  I  was  kept  to 
work  Omaha.  By  putting  up  an  imperson 
ation  of  a  gambler  who  is  waiting  for  the 
latest  odds  before  making  his  bet,  and  by 
avoiding  the  mistake  of  playing  too  high, 
I  got  away  with  my  end  of  it  for  two  days. 


I  JOIN  THE  CIRCUS  79 

But  Singleterry  botched  it.  The  first  day 
he  played,  a  ten  to  one  shot  won.  He 
rushed  up,  all  excitement,  and  bet  two 
hundred  dollars.  His  manner  and  the  size 
of  his  winning  attracted  attention.  When, 
a  day  or  two  later,  he  tried  to  put  up  a 
thousand  on  a  fifteen  to  one  shot,  they  re 
fused  the  money  and  started  an  investiga 
tion.  Before  it  was  finished  a  good  many 
Western  Union  employees  lost  their  jobs. 
Of  course  you  know  that  wire  tapping, 
as  Larry  Summerfield  and  others  practice 
it,  is  only  the  reverse  English  on  that 
game.  You  can't  corrupt  the  Western 
Union  employees  any  more.  But  the 
grafters  persuade  the  sucker  that  they 
have  done  so,  take  him  to  a  fake  poolroom 
which  they  have  fitted  up  themselves,  make 
a  "mistake"  in  the  returns,  get  his  wad, 
and  have  the  place  pulled  by  phony  de 
tectives  in  order  to  lose  him.  I  don't  fancy 
that  game.  Too  many  people  are  in  the 
secret.  Your  cappers,  your  boosters  and 
your  phony  cops  tell  their  girls,  and  their 


80    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

girls  tell  other  girls,  until  it  gets  all  over 
town.  The  fewer  people  there  are  in  a 
graft  transaction,  the  less  risk  there  is. 
That  was  one  of  my  reasons  for  favoring 
three-card  monte  as  a  steady  game — no 
one  is  involved  except  you,  your  one 
steerer,  and  the  sucker. 


CHAPTER  III 

I  BECOME  AN  EMINENT  FIXER  AND  AN 
ADEPT  AT  BIG  JOINT 

A  LL  things  considered,  the  toughest 
•**•  circus  in  my  experience  was  the  one 
I  joined  in  the  spring  of  eighty-eight.  To 
understand  why  it  was  so  tough,  and  why 
I  struck  the  troubles  peculiar  to  that  trip, 
I'll  have  to  go  hack  and  say  something 
more  about  the  underside  of  the  old-time 
circus  business. 

In  my  day  on  the  road  most  little  wagon 
shows  like  this  one  were  nothing  more  than 
an  excuse  to  draw  the  grangers  into  skin 
games.  The  grafters  and  the  management 
had  a  regular  system  of  profit-sharing. 
At  the  end  of  each  day  the  various  games 
pooled  their  returns.  First  they  took  out 
the  "nut."  That  is  the  general  term, 
among  gamblers,  for  the  expense  account. 

81 


82    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

Next  the  "fixer,"  who  had  begun  the  day 
by  squaring  things  with  city  officials,  took 
out  his  ten  per  cent.  Thirty-five  per  cent 
of  the  remainder  went  to  the  show;  and 
the  rest — fifty-five  per  cent — was  divided 
among  the  gamblers.  The  dealers  or  pro 
prietors  of  the  various  shell,  roll-up  and 
roll-out  games  paid  their  own  help,  and 
reimbursed  the  circus  for  their  board  and 
transportation. 

This  circus  was  a  little  nine-car  concern 
which  had  some  territory  in  Indiana  and 
Michigan — we  cut  a  zigzag  course  all  the 
season.  We  showed  a  few  poor  trapeze 
and  bareback  turns,  a  small  menagerie, 
and  some  clowns.  It  is  an  axiom  in  the 
circus  business  that  first-class  ring  acts 
don't  pay  in  the  country.  When  you 
strike  the  cities  you  find  them  more  critical. 
Farm  people  care  mainly  for  the  men 
agerie.  A  circus  is  always  divided  into 
two  camps,  the  performers — we  call  them 
"kinkers" — and  the  gamblers.  The  kin- 
kers  are  the  most  retiring  and  exclusive 


I  BECOME  A  FIXER  83 

people  in  the  world.  Half  of  them  can't 
tell  you  the  name  of  the  town  they're 
playing.  They  don't  seem  to  have  any 
interest  in  anything  but  their  acts.  They 
go  to  their  bunks  when  the  performance  is 
over,  get  up  next  morning  at  the  stop, 
practice,  do  their  turns,  eat,  and  back  to 
the  bunks  again.  They  hate  the  grafters 
on  principle,  because  the  gambling  games 
make  so  much  noise  and  trouble.  The 
canvasmen,  as  a  rule,  side  with  the  graf 
ters. 

We  had  two  shell  games,  a  "cloth"  and 
a  "roll-out"  team.  I  don't  have  to  explain 
the  shell  game,  I  guess.  "Cloth"  is  an 
easy-money  dice  game.  The  operator  has 
before  him  a  sheet  of  green  felt,  marked 
off  into  figured  squares — eight  to  forty- 
eight.  The  player  throws  eight  dice,  and 
the  dealer  compares  the  sum  of  the  spots 
he  has  thrown  with  the  numbers  on  the 
cloth.  Certain  spaces  are  marked  for 
prizes,  five  or  six  are  marked  "condi 
tional,"  and  one,  number  twenty-three,  is 


84,    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

marked  "lose."  The  dealer  keeps  his  stack 
of  coins  over  the  twenty-three  space,  so 
that  it  isn't  noticed  until  the  time  to  show 
it. 

WHY   TWENTY-THREE    MEANS   DOWN    AND 
OUT 

These  spaces  marked  "conditional"  are 
used  in  a  great  many  gambling  games, 
such  as  spindle;  they're  the  most  useful 
thing  in  the  world  for  leading  the  sucker 
on.  For  when  he  throws  "conditional,"  the 
dealer  tells  him  that  he  is  in  great  luck. 
He  has  thrown  better  than  a  winning  num 
ber.  He  has  only  to  double  his  bet,  and 
on  the  next  throw  he  will  get  four  times 
the  indicated  prize,  or  if  he  throws  a  blank 
number,  the  equivalent  of  his  money.  He 
is  kept  throwing  "conditionals"  until  his 
whole  pile  is  down;  and  then  made  to 
throw  twenty-three — the  space  which  he 
failed  to  notice,  and  which  is  marked 
"lose." 


I  BECOME  A  FIXER  85 

You  may  ask  how  the  dealer  makes  the 
sucker  throw  just  what  he  wants.  Simplest 
thing  in  the  world.  The  man  is  counted 
out.  The  table  is  crowded  with  boosters, 
all  jostling  and  reaching  for  the  box,  eager 
to  play.  The  assistant  dealer  grabs  up  the 
dice,  adds  them  hurriedly,  announces  the 
number  that  he  wants  to  announce,  and 
sweeps  them  back  into  the  box.  If  the 
sucker  kicks,  a  booster  reaches  over  next 
time  the  dice  are  counted,  says  "my  play," 
and  musses  them  up.  The  player  never 
knows  what  he  has  thrown.  I  don't  need 
to  say  that  "twenty-three,"  as  slang, 
comes  from  this  game.  The  circus  used  it 
for  years  before  it  was  ever  heard  on 
Broadway. 

"Roll-out"  has  many  variations.  The 
operator  stands  in  a  buggy,  spieling  for  a 
new  line  of  licorice  candy.  He  announces 
that,  in  order  to  introduce  the  goods,  he 
is  going  to  take  an  extraordinary  measure. 
He  is  going  to  wrap  up  a  twenty-dollar 


86    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

bill  in  one  of  the  packages  and  sell  it  at  a 
reduced  figure  to  a  gentleman  in  the  audi 
ence.  After  a  little  bidding,  a  booster  buys 
it  for  fifteen  or  sixteen  dollars  and  shows 
his  twenty-dollar  bill  to  the  crowd.  This 
pulls  on  the  sucker,  who  has  been  marked 
and  felt  out  from  the  moment  that  he  ar 
rived  on  the  grounds.  When  he  buys  his 
twenty-dollar  bill — maybe  it  is  fifty  or  a 
hundred  if  he  looks  good  for  it — he  finds 
only  a  dollar  bill  in  the  package — a  sleight- 
of-hand  trick  does  the  work.  Doesn't  it 
sound  foolish  for  me  to  sit  here  and  tell 
you  that  people  are  roped  into  such  a  play 
as  that  ?  But  if  I  could  tell  the  whole  story 
of  one  of  these  swindles,  put  in  the  dia 
logue,  the  little  gestures  and  stage  busi 
ness,  you  would  see  how  gradually  his 
natural  greed  is  brought  out  in  the  sucker 
until  his  eagerness  for  big  money  kills  his 
common-sense.  Human  greed  is  the  best 
booster  of  the  confidence  man. 


I  BECOME  A  FIXER  87 

SQUARING   THE   MAYOR  AND   HIS   MINIONS 

I  got  my  first  real  experience  as  fixer 
that  year,  and  I  learned  a  lot  about  stall 
ing.  When  the  show  struck  town  I  saw 
the  chief  of  police  first — he  was  generally 
easy.  I  have  bribed  them  with  tickets 
alone.  Next  I  fixed  the  justices  of  the 
peace,  and  once  in  a  while  I  attended  to 
the  mayor.  Ten  or  twenty  dollars  apiece 
would  usually  satisfy  the  officials  of  a 
small  town.  I'd  explain  carefully  that  we 
didn't  intend  to  take  aw^ay  big  money  from 
any  one.  All  we  wanted  was  permission 
to  run  a  few  legitimate  games  of  chance. 
There  should  be  a  little  license  allowed  on 
circus  day.  Mayors  that  I  couldn't  buy  I 
worked  in  another  fashion.  I  could  always 
give  them  free  tickets  for  themselves  and 
families.  When  the  mayor's  party  arrived 
my  assistant  would  take  them  in  hand,  and 
keep  them  entertained  about  the  big  top 
until  supper-time. 


88    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

The  town  authorities,  no  matter  how 
heavily  they  were  bribed,  seldom  let  the 
shows  run  all  day.  Generally,  some 
skinned  sucker  would  put  up  such  a  kick 
that  the  authorities  would  awake  to  the 
nature  of  our  harmless  little  games,  and 
close  us  out.  I'd  stall  the  police  as  long 
as  I  could ;  when  I  reached  the  end  of  my 
devices  I  would  let  them  arrest  a  dealer  or 
two.  In  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a  hun 
dred,  the  prisoners  would  be  taken  before 
one  of  my  bribed  justices  and  let  off  with 
a  little  fine,  which  came  out  of  the  "nut." 
On  account  of  this  danger  we  started  the 
games  as  soon  as  the  parade  began,  threw 
in  a  lot  of  boosters,  and  kept  things  going 
at  top  speed.  If  we  had  taken  in  a  thou 
sand  or  twelve  hundred  dollars  before  the 
police  came  down  on  us,  we  were  satisfied. 
The  hardest  part  of  my  job,  though,  was 
stalling  the  weeping  suckers  who  came 
around  to  demand  their  money  back.  My 
methods  varied  with  the  man.  In  the  case 
of  a  big,  blustering,  cowardly  fellow,  a 


I  BECOME  A  FIXER  89 

straight,  swift  punch  in  the  jaw  was  some 
times  the  best  medicine.     If  he  got  me 
arrested  for  it  I  could  always  bring  wit 
nesses  to  show  that  he  had  started  a  dis 
turbance  and  threatened  me.     Sometimes 
I  would  laugh  at  my  man,  telling  him  that 
he  got  what  he  might  expect.    Sometimes 
I'd  sympathize,  promise  on  behalf  of  the 
management    that    the    affair   would    be 
looked  into.    I  learned  one  thing  early- 
never  give  anything  back  unless  you  give 
it  all  back.    For  if  you  do  return  a  part  it 
proves  the  weakness  of  your  position,  and 
the  sucker  howls  harder  than  ever  for  the 
rest.     Moreover,  the  other  suckers  hear 
about  it,  and  you  have  to  settle  with  them 
all.    On  one  occasion  I  had  to  hand  over 
a  roll  of  three  hundred  and  fifty  dollars 
Which  we  had  taken  at  the  shells.     The 
sucker,  it  turned  out,  was  brother-in-law 
of  the  chief  of  police;  and  though  the  chief 
was  bribed,  it  didn't  prevent  him  from 
threatening  to  arrest  the  whole  outfit  un 
less  we  gave  up. 


90    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 
TROUBLE  IN  A  LUMBER  CAMP 

As  we  struck  the  Michigan  woods  we 
began  to  come  against  the  French-Cana 
dian  lumbermen — soft  but  troublesome. 
When  they  lost  they  always  wanted  to 
fight.  They  were  big,  strong  chaps,  but 
their  methods  were  unscientific — mostly 
wrestling  and  clawing  the  air.  Scraps  be 
came  more  and  more  common  around  the 
show.  We  made  so  much  noise  at  night, 
settling  up  with  the  day's  picking,  that  the 
kinkers  threatened  to  quit.  The  farther 
north  we  went  the  more  troublesome  they 
got.  It  culminated  in  a  border  town  of 
Michigan — Oscoda,  I  think. 

We  had  put  in  a  great  day.  I  had  the 
officials  sewed  up,  and  the  games  went  on 
until  late  at  night.  In  the  early  afternoon 
we  caught  a  big  lumberman,  who  seemed 
to  be  a  kind  of  leader,  for  seventy-five  dol 
lars  at  "roll-out."  He  raged  up  and  down, 
trying  to  stop  the  circus.  The  canvasmen 
threw  him  out  of  the  lot.  His  mates  ran 


I  BECOME  A  FIXER  91 

up  to  help  him.  I  scraped  my  way  through 
the  mob  and  got  to  the  leader.  Instead  of 
listening  to  me,  he  came  at  me  with  his 
arms  flying.  I  let  him  have  it  in  the  jaw. 
I  don't  know  what  might  have  happened 
if  the  town  police  hadn't  broken  up  the 
mob. 

I  thought  the  police  would  close  us  out 
right  there;  but  they  were  too  well  fixed. 
Nevertheless,  I  saw  trouble;  and  I  went 
from  game  to  game  advising  the  boys  to  go 
easy.  The  money  was  rolling  in  like  water, 
and  they  only  said,  "Let  'em  come  on." 
"All  right,"  said  I;  "they  will." 
At  half-past  eight,  with  the  perform 
ance  going  on  inside  and  the  games  still 
drawing  in  the  side-show  tents,  I  heard 
that  "zaa-zaa"  sound  of  a  mob.  I  ran  to 
the  corner  of  the  lot.  About  two  hundred 
men  in  their  shirt  sleeves  were  approach 
ing  in  a  bunch.  It  appears  that  a  little 
Frenchman,  who  had  been  done  out  of 
fifty  in  the  shell  game,  had  gone  down  to 
their  hang-out  and  aroused  his  mates. 


92    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

They  were  coming  to  lick  the  circus.  I 
ran  toward  the  side-shows,  yelling  "Lay 
ing-out  pins!"  at  the  top  of  my  voice. 
That  call  always  brings  the  grafters  out 
for  a  fight.  A  laying-out  pin  is  a  thin  iron 
stake  which  the  boss  canvasman  uses  to 
mark  out  the  tent  space;  it  is  a  great 
weapon  in  a  fight — just  heavy  enough  to 
lay  a  man  out,  and  just  light  enough  to 
bend  over  his  head  without  breaking  his 
skull.  I  saw  a  college  rush  once,  and  this 
had  a  funny  resemblance  to  it.  The 
grafters,  about  twenty-five  in  all,  jumped 
to  their  pins  and  gathered  in  front  of  the 
big  tent.  The  French-Canadians  stopped 
at  the  corner  of  the  lot,  howling  and  yell 
ing.  I  said,  "Boys,  if  they  come  in  a 
bunch,  beat  them  to  it."  I  knew  that  if 
the  fight  came  off  close  to  the  tent  we 
stood  to  lose  good  canvas,  besides  making 
a  panic  inside. 

And  all  at  once  the  Frenchmen  rushed 
at  us  in  a  long  line. 

"Now!"  said  I.     The  grafters  charged 


I  BECOME  A  FIXER  93 

in  a  compact  bunch  like  one  of  those  foot 
ball  wedges.  They  hit  the  mob  right  in 
its  centre,  and  went  through.  I  didn't 
have  time  to  see  what  happened  next,  for 
I  found  my  own  hands  full. 

I  had  stayed  back,  like  a  general,  to 
direct  things.  Well,  when  our  fellows 
went  through,  the  end  of  the  line  kept  on, 
and  a  few  stragglers  reached  the  big  tent. 
They  were  about  crazy  with  excitement, 
and  they  seemed  to  have  some  idea  of 
wrecking  the  show.  Three  of  them 
grabbed  the  stake-ropes  and  began  to  pull. 
I  came  up  from  behind  and  let  the  nearest 
one  have  it  with  my  laying-out  pin.  The 
others  dropped  the  ropes  and  came  at  me 
separately.  I  got  the  leader  with  a  punch 
in  the  pit  of  the  stomach — quarters  were 
too  close  for  the  pin.  The  canvasmen  at 
tended  to  the  other  fellow. 

When  I  had  time  to  look  around,  the 
Frenchmen  were  flying  in  every  direction, 
with  the  grafters  chasing  them  in  bunches 
of  three  or  four.  It  appears  that  our 


94,    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

wedge  had  gone  clear  through  the  line. 
Before  the  enemy  could  form  again  our 
fellows  had  turned  back  and  charged 
through  them  in  the  opposite  direction, 
taking  some  of  them  in  the  rear.  That 
finished  them;  they  just  turned  and  beat 
it.  We  carted  off  seven  Frenchmen  to  the 
hospital.  I  don't  know  that  any  of  them 
were  disabled  for  life,  but  some  looked  to 
be  pretty  badly  hurt.  Besides  a  few 
bruises  and  cut  heads,  the  only  injury  we 
had  was  one  broken  arm. 

CLANKING  DAYS  IN  TEXAS 

That  show  turned  out  rather  badly  for 
me.  There  was  trouble  over  division  of 
profits,  trouble  over  women — trouble  all 
along  the  line.  One  of  the  shell-game  men, 
who  had  wanted  to  be  fixed  at  the  opening 
of  the  season,  did  everything  he  could  to 
embarrass  me.  That  man  had  six  or  seven 
medals  for  being  mean.  Though  he 
earned  a  good  living  at  the  shells  he  made 


I  BECOME  A  FIXER  95 

his  wife  play  Circassian  Beauty  with  the 
side-show — forced  that  little  woman  to  sit 
all  afternoon  and  evening  in  one  of  those 
hot  Circassian  wigs  for  a  salary  of  eight 
dollars  a  week! 

I  drew  down  the  big  job  next  season — 
fixer  for  the  second  largest  show  in  the 
country.  While  it  was  too  big  to  depend 
entirely  on  the  graft  for  profits,  it  did  run 
games  wherever  it  safely  could.  It  had 
winter  quarters  in  an  Ohio  city,  and  the 
Boss  would  never  allow  the  grafting  to 
start  until  we  were  well  out  of  home  terri 
tory.  We  didn't  begin  to  work  that  season 
until  we  got  as  far  West  as  Missouri  and 
Arkansas. 

Besides  doing  the  fixing,  I  ran  one  of 
the  shell  games  with  my  old  pal  Jakey,  the 
man  who  helped  me  steal  the  elephant; 
and  I  quit  that  season  about  twelve  thou 
sand  dollars  a  winner.  We  did  our  best 
work  in  Texas.  The  country  was  still  a 
little  wild,  the  cattle  business  was  paying 
good  money,  and  some  of  the  towns  were 


96    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

virgin  soil — they'd  never  seen  a  shell 
game.  I  remember  Honey  Grove  for  the 
best  day's  business  I  ever  saw  a  show  do. 
Out  of  two  shell  games,  one  roll-out  outfit 
and  a  beehive  we  divided  five  thousand 
dollars.  Even  that  show  got  careless  with 
its  methods  in  such  good  territory,  and  we 
raised  a  lot  of  trouble  first  and  last.  In 
one  cattle  town  I  had  a  narrow  escape. 
I  was  standing  talking  to  the  Boss  in  the 
shell  tent  when  a  bullet  came  through  the 
flap,  passed  between  us,  and  killed  a  boy 
who  was  rubbering  at  the  game.  It  ap 
peared  that  a  cowboy  had  shot  a  nigger; 
the  bullet  had  gone  clean  through  the 
nigger  before  it  entered  our  tent. 

The  trouble  we  made,  and  the  further 
trouble  kicked  up  by  some  grafting  little 
shows  which  followed  us  in,  caused  the 
State  to  pass  a  law  making  the  circus 
license  for  each  performance  a  thousand 
dollars.  Nevertheless,  I  fixed  that  show 
for  Texas  the  next  year  without  paying  a 
cent.  I  saw  the  authorities,  and  agreed 


I  BECOME  A  FIXER  97 

to  put  up  the  money  in  a  lump  sum  as  we 
left  the  State.  We  had  forty  perform 
ances,  making  the  fees  forty  thousand 
dollars.  Denison,  the  last  stop  in  the 
State,  was  the  point  where  we  were  sup 
posed  to  settle.  We  went  through  Denison 
at  forty  miles  an  hour.  It  didn't  really 
pay,  because  that  show  was  barred  from 
Texas  forever  after. 

In  spite  of  the  press  agent,  the  most 
interesting  things  that  happen  around  a 
show  are  those  which  don't  get  into  print. 
We  had  a  midget  of  a  Frenchman  work 
ing  on  the  shells — he  would  have  been  fat 
at  ninety  pounds.  He  was  a  reckless 
player.  Somewhere  down  by  the  border 
he  lifted  seven  hundred  dollars  from  a 
cowpuncher;  and  a  whole  round-up  out 
fit  came  down  on  us  looking  for  him.  No 
use  to  go  against  them  with  laying-out 
pins — they  were  gun-men.  It  was  up  to 
me  to  hide  the  Frenchman.  Billy,  the 
Shakespearian  clown — by  the  way,  his 
daughter  is  now  a  star  in  a  new  Broadway 


98    THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

show — was  my  good  friend.  I  rushed  the 
Frenchman  to  Billy. 

"Put  a  clown  make-up  on  him  and  take 
him  into  the  ring  with  you,"  said  I,  "and 
keep  him  there  until  further  notice."  Then 
news  came  that  the  cowpunchers  were 
going  to  lay  for  us  at  the  railroad  yards, 
where  a  clown  make-up  would  only  have 
attracted  suspicion.  I  packed  my  French- 
ie  to  the  menagerie  superintendent. 

"Chuck  this  in  the  cage  with  some  of 
the  hay  animals,"  I  said.  "And  don't 
open  the  cage  until  we're  safe  aboard." 
The  superintendent  was  just  putting  the 
canvas  cover  on  the  cage  of  the  Abyssinian 
ibex. 

"How'llthisdo?"saidhe. 

"Fine!"  said  I.  So  we  opened  the  trap 
at  the  top,  dropped  the  Frenchman  in, 
and  carted  him  away.  The  committee  of 
indignant  citizens  was  at  the  station,  all 
right.  The  superintendent  remarked  off 
hand,  as  we  loaded,  that  if  Frenchie 
didn't  stop  making  so  much  noise  in 


I  BECOME  A  FIXER  99 

there  his  suckers  would  surely  spot  him. 

We  stopped  at  a  little  station  five  miles 
down  the  line,  and  I  went  back  to  release 
him.  I'd  no  sooner  opened  the  trap  than 
he  popped  out  into  my  face.  I  hardly 
knew  him.  He  hadn't  a  square  foot  of 
whole  clothing  on  his  body.  Both  being 
excitable,  the  Frenchman  and  the  Abys 
sinian  ibex  had  been  fighting  all  the  way. 

Twice  on  that  first  trip  we  lost  lions. 
Once,  a  coal  chute  fell  on  a  lion  cage  at 
a  siding,  breaking  it  wide  open,  and  two 
young  males  escaped.  They  sneaked  into 
a  farm  near  by.  When  we  located  them 
they  had  just  entered  the  barn  of  a  Ger 
man  and  killed  his  horse.  As  I  came  up 
with  the  keeper,  the  farmer  shoved  his  face 
into  mine,  saying: 

"By  Chimminy,  you  take  dose  lions 
away  or  I'll  ar-rest  you!"  We  ran  a  cage 
up  to  the  barn  door,  tied  up  an  antelope 
or  some  other  hay  animal  behind  it,  and 
so  baited  them  back  into  captivity. 

The  next  time  brought  more  trouble. 


100  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

The  cage  wasn't  properly  lashed  on  the 
flat  car,  and  it  tumbled  off  while  the  train 
was  going  twenty  miles  an  hour.  The 
whole  back  fell  out,  and  a  fine  young 
lioness  got  away.  I  remember  the  Boss 
saying  to  two  of  the  grafters,  after  he'd 
blown  off  his  feelings : 

"Here,  Bones  and  Tully,  you  won't  be 
working  today.  You  go  back  and  get  that 
lion!"  Cheerful  little  job! 

Well,  Bones  and  Tully  couldn't  find 
track  nor  sign  of  her — at  least  so  they  re 
ported.  We  traveled  for  three  stops  with 
out  hearing  a  word.  Then  a  farmer  came 
in  with  her  hide  and  a  bill  for  one  hundred 
dollars. 

His  wife  had  been  driving  home  the 
cows  in  the  twilight  when  the  lioness 
leaped  past  her  and  pulled  down  one  of 
the  cows.  She  ran  home.  The  farmer  got 
his  rifle  and  went  back  to  the  pasture. 
The  lioness  had  killed  another  cow  by  that 
time  and  had  settled  down  to  make  a 
supper.  He  drew  a  bead  behind  her 


I  BECOME  A  FIXER  101 

shoulder  and  killed  her  the  first  shot. 
Until  he  went  up  to  look  her  over  he 
thought  he  had  bagged  a  catamount! 

In  my  time  with  this  big  show  I  saw  the 
rise  and  development  of  one  of  the  greatest 
American  gamblers.  I  call  him  Big 
Blackey,  which  is  near  to  his  name.  When 
I  joined,  he  was  just  an  ignorant  canvas- 
man  from  the  West  Virginia  mountains. 
I  used  to  see  him  hanging  around  the 
shell  games — a  great,  big,  raw-boned 
fellow,  with  a  face  a  good  deal  like  Lin 
coln's.  He  watched  the  shells  until  he 
saw  how  they  did  it,  borrowed  some  ap 
paratus,  and  learned  to  be  a  good  manipu 
lator.  By  the  end  of  the  season  we  had 
him  regularly  at  work. 

Really,  there  isn't  a  lot  in  manipulating 
shells.  The  "pea"  is  a  little  ball  of  very 
soft  rubber,  like  the  composition  they  use 
in  printing  rollers.  It  is  so  squashy  that 
when  pressed  it  becomes  as  thin  as  paper. 
The  manipulator  never  has  to  lift  his 
shell  at  all.  He  simply  catches  the  pea 


102  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

under  the  edge  of  the  shell,  and  rubs  until 
it  pops  out  under  his  hand.  He  picks  up 
the  pea  between  two  of  his  fingers  and 
holds  it  there  until  he  is  ready  to  roll  it 
back — under  the  wrong  shell.  It  was  in 
understanding  suckers  and  handling  men 
that  Blackey  shone.  That  big,  fishy  eye 
of  his  saw  the  soft  one  the  minute  he 
stepped  into  the  crowd.  When  Blackey 
had  his  man  spotted  he  used  all  his 
boosters  and  cappers  to  the  very  best 
advantage — even  in  the  first  season  I  used 
to  stand  around  and  watch  him,  as  an 
education  in  keeping  things  going.  He 
had  plenty  of  nerve  and  could  fight  with 
the  best  of  us  when  there  was  any  trouble. 
But  he  kept  out  of  trouble  all  he  could — 
he  was  strictly  business,  that  Blackey. 

A  WILD-GOOSE  CHASE  TO  AUSTRALIA 

His  curse  was  big,  prolonged,  spending 
jags.  I  don't  know  any  one  in  the  busi 
ness  who  made  more  money  than  he. 


I  BECOME  A  FIXER  103 

During  the  World's  Fair  in  St.  Louis  he 
ran  two  gambling  excursion  boats  down 
the  river — ten  cents  to  get  on,  all  your 
money,  and  then  some,  to  get  off.  Other 
men  lost  out  on  those  gambling-boats, 
but  he  cleared  one  hundred  and  forty 
thousand  dollars.  Yet  when  he  died,  two 
or  three  years  later,  he  left  only  forty 
thousand  dollars. 

There  was  mercury  in  my  feet  in  those 
days — I  had  to  be  going,  going.  I  don't 
know  why  I  didn't  stay  with  the  big  show ; 
certainly  there  would  have  been  a  future 
in  it  for  me.  Perhaps  it  was  an  ap 
preciation  of  the  fact  that  the  booze  was 
getting  me.  A  fixer  is  under  continual 
temptation  to  drink.  Then,  too,  a  piece 
of  bad  luck  soured  me. 

We  were  playing  the  Pacific  Coast. 
An  American  circus  had  done  mighty  well 
in  Australia  two  seasons  before.  The 
Boss  determined  to  go  over  there  for  their 
summer  and  winter  season.  I  accom 
panied  him  not  only  as  a  fixer,  but  as  gen- 


104  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

eral  manager  of  all  the  gambling  games. 
We  no  sooner  struck  Sydney  than  we 
saw  that  we  were  in  bad.  The  Australian 
amusement  directors  remembered  what 
the  other  circus  had  done  to  them,  and 
they  put  all  kinds  of  hindrances  in  our 
way.  Before  we  landed  they  got  one 
hundred  of  our  horses  condemned  for 
glanders.  In  our  first  parade  we  had  men 
hauling  the  animal  cages.  It  was  a  cinch 
that  they'd  get  the  show  suppressed,  if 
by  starting  any  games  we  gave  them  the 
slightest  excuse.  I  tried  to  approach  some 
of  those  Australian  officials.  They  said: 
"Oi,  me  deah  fellow,  I  cahn't  think  of  such 
a  thing,  ye  know."  It  was  no  use;  the  old 
man  gave  up  all  idea  of  educating  Aus 
tralia  in  the  shell  game,  and  in  two  weeks 
I  returned.  I  went  at  once  into  the  gold- 
brick  game,  where  there  was  no  tempta 
tion  to  drink. 

My  last  turn  with  a  circus  was  three 
seasons  later,  when  I  joined  a  "big  joint" 
mob  which  followed  a  little  show  through 


I  BECOME  A  FIXER  105 

Kansas,  Nebraska  and  the  Dakotas.  The 
game  of  big  joint  illustrates  so  well  the 
ways  and  methods  of  a  good  confidence 
man  that  I  will  go  into  particulars  about 
it. 

In  the  first  place,  understand  that  this 
show  had  picked  its  territory  with  a  view 
to  graft.  It  was  a  farming  district.  The 
original  settlers,  who  had  taken  fortunes 
out  of  virgin  soil,  were  old  and  well-to-do 
— and  the  older  the  man  the  softer  the 
sucker.  My  mob  consisted  of  Harris,  the 
operator,  who  stayed  with  the  show,  and 
Hazleton  and  I,  who  followed  it  around 
in  a  buckboard,  never  showing  our  faces 
near  the  big  tent  except  when  we  were  at 
work.  Hazleton  was  an  ideal  man  for  the 
part  he  played  in  our  combination.  He 
was  tall  and  fine-looking;  he  wore  a  mili 
tary  goatee  and  his  Grand  Army  badge 
in  his  button-hole.  He  really  was  an  old 
soldier. 

When  we  reached  one  of  those  rich 
farming  towns  Hazleton  and  I  separated. 


106  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

I  tied  up  the  blackboard  and  hung  around 
the  post-office  until,  in  one  way  or  another, 
I  picked  up  an  acquaintance  with  the 
sucker.  I'd  tell  him,  when  we  were  estab 
lished  on  a  friendly  footing,  that  I  had 
driven  over  to  see  the  circus,  from  some 
town  fifteen  or  sixteen  miles  away.  I  was 
the  brother  of  a  prominent  citizen,  and  was 
just  up  from  Kentucky  on  a  visit.  I 
won't  go  into  further  detail  about  that; 
my  whole  game  was  to  make  myself  com 
panionable  and  agreeable  for  half  an  hour 
or  so.  And  at  last  I'd  mention  the  circus. 
Then  I'd  get  him  to  propose  that  we  walk 
over  and  look  at  the  tents  while  the 
parade  was  away.  Near  our  little  side 
show  tent  we'd  meet  Harris.  Let's  make 
it  dialogue  for  a  little  way : 

HARRIS  :  Gentlemen,  do  you  live  in 
this  town? 

I:  No  sir,  I  don't;  I'm  over  from 
Monmouth,  visiting;  but  this  gentle 
man  is  one  of  the  prominent  citizens. 


I  BECOME  A  FIXER  107 

HARRIS:  Then  you  are  the  man  I 
am  looking  for.  We  were  giving 
away  free  tickets  to  prominent  citi 
zens  by  way  of  advertising  both  the 
circus  and  certain  other  attractions 
which  I  desire  to  show  you. 

I  (incredulous) :  You  don't  mean 
to  say  that  you're  letting  us  have 
those  tickets  free?  Seems  like  a 
funny  proposition  to  get  anything 
without  strings  on  it  in  this  world, 
especially  around  a  circus. 

HARRIS:  Yes,  sir,  absolutely  free. 
Not  only  that,  but  every  holder  of 
one  of  these  complimentary  tickets 
gets  a  drawing  in  a  prize  lottery 
which  is  now  going  on  inside. 

I  (shocked)  :  You  don't  mean  a 
gambling  game! 

HARRIS:  Oh,  no  indeed!  It  is  a 
fair  and  legitimate  business  proposi 
tion,  without  a  shadow  of  gambling 
— but  kindly  step  inside  and  let  me 
explain  to  you. 


108  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

I  (to  the  sucker) :  Shall  we  go  in? 

MR.  SUCKER:  Oh,  it  won't  hurt  to 
see  what  he  has. 

I:  No,  I  suppose  not;  but  I've 
heard  that  they  gamble  around  the 
circuses.  I'm  a  Hard-Shell  Baptist, 
myself,  and  I  don't  believe  in  gam 
bling. 

Now,  inside  the  tent  the  only  thing  in 
sight  is  a  show-case  with  a  lot  of  prize  arti 
cles  displayed — watches,  knives,  cheap 
jewelry,  a  two-dollar  bill,  a  ten-dollar  bill, 
and  one  big  roll  of  paper  money.  On  each 
article  there  is  a  numbered  tag;  and 
Harris  takes  up  from  the  case  a  bunch  of 
envelopes. 

HARRIS:  Now  gentlemen,  let  me 
explain  for  a  moment  a  proposition 
that  must  seem  mysterious  to  you.  I 
am  following  this  circus  as  the  best 
method  of  introducing  Rising  Sun 
Sterling  Silver  [a  short  spiel  about 


I  BECOME  A  FIXER  109 

the  merits  of  this  new  silverware]. 
I  am  taking  a  rather  novel  method. 
Our  best  customers,  since  we  do  mail 
business  strictly,  come  from  the 
prairie  districts.  Therefore,  it  pays 
us  to  advertise  in  this  manner,  and  it 
will  pay  you  to  help  us.  Understand, 
I  am  not  proposing  an  agency.  All 
we  want  to  do  is  to  interest  stable 
citizens  like  yourselves.  I  simply  ask 
that  you  take  away  with  you  a  few  of 
those  circulars  to  distribute  among 
your  friends.  That  inducement  makes 
it  worth  our  while  to  pay  your  ad 
mission  and  to  give  you  a  drawing  in 
this  lottery.  (To  me) :  Will  you 
draw  one  of  these  envelopes,  sir? 
Each  contains  a  number  to  corre 
spond  with  one  of  the  prize  articles 
in  the  case. 

I  (still  a  skeptic) :  You're  sure  this 
ain't  a  gambling  game? 

HARRIS:  Not  at  all,  sir.  You  put 
up  nothing. 


110  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

I  (to  Mr.  Sucker):  Well,  this 
looks  too  good  to  be  true,  but  I'll 
try  it. 

I  draw  from  the  envelope.  Out  comes 
number  18.  Harris  looks  into  the  show 
case. 

HARRIS:  I  congratulate  you,  sir. 
Prize  number  18  is  two  dollars. 

I:  Well,  that's  just  like  finding  it. 

HARRIS:  There  is  only  one  thing 
more  before  I  hand  you  the  money. 
We  have  to  insist  that  any  man  who 
receives  a  cash  prize  from  this  draw 
ing  shall  show  an  equivalent  sum  of 
money  to  prove  that  he  is  a  responsi 
ble  citizen.  In  the  case  of  your 
drawing,  it  is  ridiculous  to  suppose 
that  you  haven't  the  small  sum  of 
two  dollars.  But  it  is  our  rule,  made 
to  cover  the  larger  prizes. 

I :  You  want  to  know  if  I  have  two 
dollars?  Certainly.  Here  it  is. 


I  BECOME  A  FIXER  ill 

HARRIS  (handing  over  the  money] : 
Then  I  need  say  no  more.  Please 
take  some  of  these  circulars  and  dis 
tribute  them  to  your  friends.  Now, 
sir  (to  Mr.  Sucker),  will  you  kindly 
draw? 

The  sucker  is  all  for  drawing  by  this 
time;  he  has  his  first  taste  of  his  own 
greed.  He  draws.  And  he  gets  number 
11.  Please  remember  that  number,  and 
how  it  looks  written  out.  It  is  important. 

HARRIS  (looking  into  the  showcase) : 
By  the  Lord  Harry ;  you  are  in  luck. 
Well,  well!  You  have  drawn  the 
capital  prize — four  hundred  dollars! 

I :  Do  you  mean  to  tell  me  that  you 
are  going  to  give  this  gentleman  four 
hundred  dollars  for  nothing?  Ridic 
ulous! 

HARRIS:  Well,  he  has  drawn  the 
capital  prize.  We  have  to  make  good. 
We  can't  afford  to  hurt  our  reputa- 


112  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

tion  by  doing  otherwise.  I  only  ask 
that  this  gentleman  show  me  four 
hundred  dollars  to  prove  his  financial 
standing.  That  is  our  rule. 

I:  But  you  haven't  four  hundred 
dollars  on  you? 

MR.  SUCKER:  No,  but  I  can  get  it 
out  of  the  bank. 

HARRIS:  Very  well,  if  you  can  go 
to  the  bank  and  bring  back  four  hun 
dred  dollars  before  we  close,  all  right. 
But  I  must  see  your  money  as  a 
guarantee.  It's  a  business  proposi 
tion,  gentlemen. 

I:  Now  let's  have  this  thing 
straight.  If  we  get  four  hundred 
dollars  and  bring  it  here,  you  will 
pay  four  hundred  dollars  to  this 
gentleman? 

HARRIS:  That's  what  I  said. 

Then  I  draw  the  sucker  outside.  And, 
as  we  talk  it  over  and  he  asks  my  opinion, 
I  get  gradually  enthusiastic.  That  is  the 


I  BECOME  A  FIXER  113 

strength  of  my  spiel.  I  have  begun  as  a 
doubter,  and  I  have  come  to  believe.  And 
I've  swept  him  on  with  me.  Mind  you, 
that  part  of  it  isn't  always  easy.  Some 
times  I  have  to  give  the  office  [the  "office" 
is  a  con  man's  signal]  to  Hazleton,  so  that 
he  may  come  up  and  help.  But  nine 
suckers  out  of  ten  are  soft  at  that  point. 
So  we  go  up  to  the  bank  and  get  the  four 
hundred.  Returning  to  the  tent  we  flash 
it  on  Harris. 

HARRIS:  Sorry,  gentlemen,  but 
you'll  have  to  draw  over  again.  Just 
after  you  left  another  man  came  in 
and  won  the  capital  prize.  That 
means  a  new  drawing. 

I:  See  here;  is  this  a  skin  game? 
What  do  you  mean? 

HARRIS  (indignant)  :  And  what  do 
you  mean?  This  is  straight! 

I:  Well,  here's  the  money — show 
him  the  money. 

HARRIS:  I  see  the  money,  all  right. 


114.  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

But  now  this  gentleman  must  draw 
again. 

Harris  spreads  the  envelopes  on  the 
showcase.  At  that  moment  he  turns  away 
to  tie  his  shoelace.  I  run  slyly  over  the 
envelopes ;  and  sticking  out  of  one  of  them 
is  a  little  card  upon  which,  as  plain  as  day, 
we  can  see  the  ends  of  two  parallel  marks 
— the  stems  of  a  figure  eleven! 

I  wink  at  the  sucker;  he  winks  back.  I 
mark  that  envelope  by  denting  it  with 
my  thumb-nail.  At  that  moment  Harris 
straightens  up  and  resumes  his  spiel. 

HARRIS:  Well,  sir,  do  you  wish  to 
draw?  If  you  do,  put  down  your 
money  against  mine  on  the  counter 
here. 

I:  His  money  against  yours? 

HARRIS  :  Yes,  sir.  Your  four  hun 
dred  there  against  that  four  hundred 
in  the  case.  That  was  what  we  said, 
wasn't  it? 


I  BECOME  A  FIXER  115 

I:  And  the  capital  prize  number 
is  still  11? 

HARRIS:  Yes.  The  capital  prize  is 
always  11. 

Down  goes  the  money.  Now  stop  and 
consider  this  thing  a  moment.  We  began 
with  a  straight  prize  drawing — something 
for  nothing.  There  was  not  a  shade  of 
gambling  in  it.  At  this  second,  it  is  turned 
into  a  gambling  game — with  perfectly 
foolish  odds.  The  sucker  is  betting  even 
that  he  can  pick  one  envelope  from  twenty 
— and  the  odds  should  be  twenty  to  one. 
But  he  has  seen  that  prize  envelope,  and 
I  have  marked  it  for  him — it  looks  like  a 
cinch.  The  consideration  that  he  is  now 
gambling,  and  stands  to  lose  his  money  if 
he  picks  wrong,  doesn't  enter  his  mind. 
All  he  sees  is  the  four  hundred  dollars  of 
Harris'  money,  which  will  be  his  the  mo 
ment  he  puts  his  finger  on  that  marked 
envelope.  One  minute's  sensible  con 
sideration  would  dissipate  the  whole 


116  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

thing.      He    doesn't    get    that    minute. 

They  lay  out  the  rolls  side  by  side  on  the 
showcase.  The  sucker  draws  from  the 
pile  the  envelope  which  I  have  marked 
with  my  thumb-nail,  and  takes  out  the 
card. 

He  has  drawn  44,  which  calls  for  a  sil 
ver  spoon.  The  marks  which  he  took  for 
the  stems  of  two  1's  were  the  stems  of  two 
4's! 

I  put  up  a  fierce  roar;  then  I  grow 
regretful.  I  begin  to  think  of  myself  and 
my  position  at  home.  I  would  have  given 
a  thousand  dollars  rather  than  have  such 
a  thing  happen.  Heavens,  if  my  wife 
should  hear  of  it!  I  suggest  seeing  the 
management  about  it;  in  that  way  I  lead 
the  sucker  outside  of  the  tent.  Along 
comes  Hazleton,  with  his  respectable  and 
kindly  air.  I  recognize  him  as  Mr.  Baker, 
a  State  banking  commissioner,  and  an  old 
friend  of  my  brother's.  We  tell  him  what 
has  happened.  He  is  shocked  and  pained 
to  think  that  I  have  done  such  a  thing. 


He  draws  from  the  pile  the  envelope  which  I  have  marked 
with  my  thumb-nail,  and  takes  out  the  card 


I  BECOME  A  FIXER  117 

It  amounts  to  nothing  better  than  gam 
bling.  After  Baker  has  read  me  a  lecture, 
he  tells  the  sucker  that  such  things  corne 
under  his  jurisdiction.  He  will  put  his  de 
tectives  on  the  case  at  once  and  force  the 
swindling  hounds  to  give  back  the  money. 
And,  as  for  me,  he  considers  it  only  right 
that  I  share  the  loss  with  Mr.  Sucker.  I 
cheerfully  agree  to  do  that,  give  the  sucker 
my  name  and  address  (both  phony,  of 
course)  and  promise  to  send  two  hundred 
dollars  as  soon  as  I  get  home. 

This  is  just  a  typical  case;  of  course, 
there  were  many  variations  to  suit  the 
man. 

The  mob  with  that  circus  always  remem 
bered  one  trick  I  turned  that  summer.  A 
fresh  old  farmer,  who  thought  he  was  wise, 
wandered  into  the  grounds  one  afternoon. 
He  looked  over  the  shell  games,  the  cloth 
and  the  roll-out,  and  pronounced  them  a 
bunk.  He  went  to  the  town  authorities 
about  it  and  got  the  laugh — our  fixer  had 
sewed  up  everything.  He  returned  to 


118  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

roar  at  the  manager  of  the  circus.  At  this 
point  I  wandered  up. 

"Excuse  me,"  I  said  to  the  manager, 
who  caught  his  cue  as  soon  as  I  gave  him 
the  office,  "can  you  tell  me  where  I  can 
get  tickets  in  advance  for  the  performance 
tonight?  I  promised  to  take  my  wife  and 
her  sister-in-law  and  the  children,  and  I 
don't  want  to  be  fighting  and  carousing 
around  the  ticket  wagon  with  them  along, 
especially  as  I  hear  that  this  circus  of 
yours  is  a  little  tough." 

"You're  right  this  circus  is  tough!" 
came  in  the  fly  old  granger. 

"Then  maybe  I'd  better  not  take  my 
women  folks,"  I  said. 

The  manager  cut  in  and  persuaded  me 
that  it  was  all  right.  He  offered  to  bring 
me  the  tickets  himself.  I  thanked  him  and 
he  went  to  get  them.  So  I  was  left  alone 
to  get  acquainted  with  my  man.  Before 
he  got  away  from  the  grounds  we  had 
lifted  from  him  one  hundred  and  seventy 
dollars,  all  the  money  he  had  on  his  person, 


I  BECOME  A  FIXER  119 

at  big  joint.    I  didn't  even  call  Hazleton 
to  help  me  square  it  with  him. 

I'll  tell  you  how  I  come  to  remember 
that  particular  joint.  Last  summer  I  was 
crossing  on  a  crowded  ferry-boat  from 
New  York  to  Staten  Island.  I  felt  a 
touch  on  my  trousers  pocket — I  knew 
what  that  meant.  I  reached  down  quick, 
and  grabbed  a  wrist.  The  hand  in  my 
pocket  began  to  wriggle,  trying  to  find  a 
way  out.  Without  turning  around,  I 
said:  "Now  ain't  it  a  shame  to  touch  a 
man  like  that,  especially  when  he  is  an  old 
hand  at  graft  himself!"  Then,  still  keeping 
my  hold,  I  looked  around — into  the  face  of 
a  little  chap  who  used  to  rig  the  shells  for 
that  very  circus!  Over  dinner  that  night 
he  recalled  to  me  the  time  I  got  even  for 
the  circus  with  Johnnie  Wise  of  Grange 
II. 


CHAPTER  IV 

I  REJUVENATE  THREE-CARD  MONTE 

A  MAN  sometimes  spends  half  of  his 
•**'  life  locating  his  place  in  the  world. 
I  had  grafted  for  nearly  twenty  years 
before  I  found  that  my  game,  the  job  for 
which  Nature  had  fitted  me,  was  "the 
broads,"  which  is  the  grafter's  name  for 
three-card  monte.  In  the  last  ten  years 
of  my  old  life  I  did  very  little  else.  Mine 
wasn't  the  old  game  which  they  used  to 
play  at  country  fairs,  where  a  dealer  with 
glass  jewelry  and  a  fierce  black  mustache 
skinned  the  rubes.  That  racket  got  too 
well  known ;  the  rubes  would  run  if  a  man 
laid  down  three  cards  on  a  table  before 
them.  We  took  advantage  of  that  very 
disrepute;  we  put  a  new  twist  on  it,  and 
the  mob  for  which  I  spieled  made  it  a 

steady,  productive  business. 
120 


THREE  CARD  MONTE  121 

I  really  don't  deserve  all  the  credit  for 
starting  it.  Old  Marsh,  who  is  dead  now, 
and  Louis,  my  partner  in  all  my  later 
years  on  the  road,  had  it  going  already 
when  I  came  into  the  partnership;  but  I 
improved  on  their  methods  until  our  whole 
play  was  a  work  of  art. 

We  tried  it  out  in  the  remote  West, 
operating  for  a  while  in  Dakota,  at  the 
time  they  opened  up  their  Indian  lands 
there,  and  at  last  we  settled  down  in  a 
small  city  not  so  very  far  from  Chicago. 
With  that  as  a  center  we  worked  the  river 
boats  and  the  trains  on  all  the  trunk  lines. 
In  the  last  three  years  of  our  combination 
we  traveled  like  trainmen — so  much  mile 
age  every  week. 

HOW  I  WORKED  THE  DAY  COACHES 

This  city — I  won't  name  it,  but  perhaps 
you  can  guess — was  very  favorably  located 
for  our  work.  From  the  North  the  river 
brought  down  logs  and  lumbermen — the 


122  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

logs  to  the  mills  and  the  lumbermen  to  us. 
From  the  South,  in  harvest  season,  came 
rich  tobacco  planters.  A  half-dozen  rail 
roads  ran  through  its  union  station.  And 
if  ever  a  city  government  was  tied  up  and 
delivered,  it  was  that  one  in  those  days. 
My  old  pal  Jakey,  the  man  who  helped  me 
steal  the  elephant,  was  a  big  grafter  by  this 
time — he  had  cut  out  gambling  and  gone 
into  the  city-contracting  business.  He  had 
preceded  us  there,  and  gradually  he  had 
got  the  city  administration  to  stand  for 
anything  short  of  burglary  and  murder. 
When  my  monte  mob  got  itself  established 
we  held  a  council  of  war  every  Monday 
morning.  It  was  our  custom  to  set  aside 
the  week's  nut  at  those  meetings,  and  the 
part  which  went  to  the  city  gang  was  about 
four  hundred  dollars.  We  bribed  some 
times  one  and  sometimes  another,  ac 
cording  to  who  was  making  us  the  most 
trouble  at  the  time.  We  always  had  the 
chief  of  police  on  our  list,  and  usually  two 
of  his  captains.  The  newspapers  were 


THREE  CARD  MONTE  123 

about  as  troublesome  as  anything.  The 
editor  of  one  was  a  good  fellow,  and  we 
didn't  have  to  bother  him.  Another  one 
took  its  money  straight.  The  third  we  got 
around  by  inserting  a  little,  blind  adver 
tisement,  for  which  we  paid  fifty  dollars 
a  week.  Those  times  are  past  now  in  that 
city,  as  such  times  are  gradually  passing 
in  all  cities. 

I  suppose  there  are  those  who  do  not 
know  what  three-card  monte  is,  and  for 
their  benefit  I  will  explain.  The  operator 
has  three  cards  of  different  numbers  and 
suits.  He  shows  you  their  faces,  lays  them 
down,  backs  up,  shuffles  them  about  a 
little,  and  bets  you  that  you  cannot  pick 
out  any  given  card — the  ace,  say.  You've 
been  watching  that  ace,  and  you  think  you 
can.  But  when  you  turn  it  over — it  isn't. 
Only  a  matter  of  manipulation  and  the  dis 
traction  of  the  victim's  attention  for  a 
second.  Now,  look  how  we  improved  upon 
it.  Louis  was  steerer  for  the  game.  Take 
him  by  the  large,  there  was  never  his  su- 


124  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

perior  in  that  department  of  grafting.  He 
had  easy,  pleasant  manners,  and  a  simple, 
innocent  way;  on  sight  you  had  confidence 
in  him.  And  he  wasn't  one  of  those 
"twenty-minute  men"  who  can't  hold  a 
sucker  after  the  touch.  No,  Louis'  very 
best  work  came  in  tying  up  his  man,  in 
getting  him  to  go  away  without  making 
any  trouble.  I  was  the  "broad  spieler," 
which  means  that  I  did  the  actual  work 
of  manipulation.  Marsh  stayed  back 
in  another  coach  to  cash  checks  and 
drafts. 

On  the  trains  we  played  mostly  at  night, 
when  the  chance  of  interference  was 
slightest.  Of  course  we  worked  mainly  in 
day  coaches,  because  then  the  Pullman 
passengers  were  undressed  and  in  their 
bunks.  You'd  be  surprised  to  know  how 
many  men  of  means  sleep  sitting  up  in  the 
day  coach.  As  soon  as  we  boarded  we 
went  to  work  systematically  to  find  our 
man.  We  knew  the  conductor's  system 
of  check  marks,  so  we  could  tell  how  far 


THREE  CARD  MONTE  125 

each  passenger  was  traveling.  It  was  long 
distance  travelers  we  were  looking  for; 
they  usually  have  a  hundred  dollars  or 
more  either  in  cash  or  drafts.  With  our 
thorough  system  of  information,  we  often 
had  our  victim  marked  before  we  boarded 
the  train. 

At  about  two  o'clock  in  the  morning 
our  man  would  be  sound  asleep.  Louis 
would  step  up  to  him,  take  the  train  check 
from  his  hat  and  drop  it  on  the  floor. 
Then  Louis  would  shake  him  and  say: 
"Is  that  your  check  down  there?"  By  the 
time  the  sucker  had  picked  up  the  check 
and  thanked  Louis,  he'd  be  wide  awake. 
Louis  would  be  so  pleasant  about  it,  would 
have  such  good  stories  to  tell  about  people 
who  lost  their  tickets,  that  the  sucker 
would  stay  awake  to  talk.  In  half  an  hour 
or  so  they'd  be  established  on  a  cordial 
basis.  Then  Louis  would  give  me  the 
office  to  come  along.  Our  signal  for  that 
was  raising  the  hat  and  scratching  the 
head. 


126  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

I  was  made  up  for  the  part  of  an  in 
nocent  Texas  cattleman — black  sombrero, 
jeans,  a  red  handkerchief  around  my  neck. 
I'm  a  natural  mimic,  I  suppose.  In  my 
circus  trips  to  Texas  I'd  picked  up  that 
back-country  Texan  dialect,  which  is  a 
mixture  of  Southern  and  Western  with  a 
tang  of  its  own.  I'd  got  information 
about  the  country  and  the  cattle  business, 
too;  no  Texan  could  ever  pick  a  flaw  in 
my  story.  I  rehearsed  my  spiel  until  I 
knew  it  like  a  part  in  a  play,  and  I  sup 
pose  it  had  better  go  down  here  in  dialogue 
just  as  I  used  to  talk  it  off. 

I  PLAY  THE  PART  OF  A  TEXAS  CATTLEMAN 

We'll  say  that  the  sucker  is  about  an 
average-minded  man — what  they're  call 
ing  a  "bromide"  nowadays.  From  experi 
ence  Louis  and  I  know  about  what  he'll  do 
under  given  circumstances  that  are  likely 
to  arise.  Louis  gives  me  the  office,  as  I 
come  down  the  aisle,  to  show  that  he  has 


THREE  CARD  MONTE  127 

three  hundred  in  cash.    And  here  begins 
my  spiel: 

I:  Say,  can  any  of  you  chaps  give 
me  a  chaw  of  tobacco? 

Louis  (somewhat  irritated) :  No, 
I  don't  use  it. 

I  (to  the  sucker):  Say,  can  you 
give  me  a  chaw? 

MR.  SUCKER:  No. 

I:  That's  mighty  funny.  I've  asked 
pretty  nigh  every  feller  on  this  train 
fo'  a  chaw,  an'  I  ain't  got  none. 
Down  wheah  I  live  pretty  nigh  every 
body  chaws  tobacco — all  the  men,  and 
pretty  nigh  all  the  women. 

Louis  (getting  interested  in  me) : 
Women  chew  tobacco?  For  goodness' 
sake,  where's  that? 

I:  Down  in  Las  Llagas. 

Louis:  Where's  that? 

I:  Fo'  goodness'  sake,  mistah,  don't 
you  know  wheah  that  is?  Down  on 


128  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

the  Rio  Grande,  about  a  hundred  an' 
fifty  miles  from  San  Anton. 

Louis:  Well,  I'd  like  to  know  what 
sort  of  people  they  are — women  chew 
tobacco  I 

I:  Oh,  there  ain't  many  of  the 
white  women  chaw.  Mostly  greasers. 

Louis:  Greasers?  What  do  you 
mean  by  greasers? 

I:  Fo'  goodness'  sake,  mistah, 
don't  you  know  what  greasers  are? 
Mexicans. 

Louis:  Oh,  I  understand.  (He 
looks  over  at  the  sucker  and  winks 
at  him.  His  manner  says,  "There's 
fun  in  this  jay")  Well,  what  are 
you  doing  here? 

I :  Jes'  brought  up  some  cattle  f  o' 
to  sell  in  Chicago — fo'  hundred  head 
of  steers.  I  sold  'em  all,  an'  now  I'm 
goin'  down  by  Indianapolis  to  buy  a 
passel  of  bulls. 

Louis:  Why,  haven't  you  any 
bulls? 


THREE  CARD  MONTE  129 

I:  Yessuh.  But  I  ain't  got  no 
grade  bulls.  I'm  buyin'  a  lot  of 
white-faced  Herefords.  They're  the 
rustlers ! 

Louis :  How  many  cattle  have  you 
got? 

I:  I  reckon  I  don't  know,  mistah. 
A  noathah  got  tiway  with  a  lot  of  'em 
last  wintah.  I  reckon  about  thirty- 
five  hundred.  I'm  going  to  git  about 
twenty  bulls. 

Louis:  And  how  much  land? 

I:  Oh,  I  reckon  about  twenty-five 
thousand  acres. 

Here  Louis  and  I  talk  for  some  time 
about  the  cattle  business  and  my  ranch. 
This,  like  everything  else  in  this  spiel— 
every  sentence  of  it — is  aimed  toward  the 
sucker.  In  the  first  place,  I  show  him 
what  an  amusing  and  innocent  and  confid 
ing  person  I  am;  in  the  second  place,  I 
show  him  that  I  am  rich.  And,  after  a 
time : 


ISO  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

Louis :  Were  you  born  and  raised 
in  Texas? 

I:  Yessuh.  This  is  the  first  time 
evah  I  was  up  in  this  heah  Yankee 
kentry,  an'  I'll  be  doggoned  if  I  evah 
come  up  heah  any  moah. 

Louis:   Why,  don't  you  like  it? 

I:  It's  all  right  to  be  up  heah  a 
week  or  so.  But  it  weahs  you  out. 
That  theah  Chicago  is  the  doggondest 
town!  I  was  theah  fo'  days  an'  had  a 
heap  o'  fun,  but,  law  me,  it  cost  me 
pretty  nigh  fo'  hundred  dollahs. 

Louis:  How  on  earth  did  you 
spend  that  much  in  four  days? 

I:  Oh,  I  didn't  spend  it  all.  I  lost 
two  hundred  of  it. 

Louis:  Lost  it?  How?  Out  of 
your  pockets? 

I :  No,  I  lost  it  bettin'  with  a  feller. 

Louis  (he  winks  at  the  sucker 
again,  as  much  as  to  say,  "Here  we 
are  going  to  get  an  interesting 
story") :  How's  that? 


THREE  CARD  MONTE  131 

I:  Well,  mistah,  I'm  going  to  tell 
you-all  about  it.  Exactly  all  about 
it.  I  got  in  with  a  young  chap  wheah 
I  was  boa'din'  down  by  the  stock- 
yahds  an'  he  took  me  round.  Seem' 
the  sights,  he  called  it.  That  chap 
knew  jess  wheah  to  go.  I  reckon  we 
must  'a'  been  in  twenty-five  places. 
Sich  kickin'  an'  carryin'  on  you  nevah 
saw.  Law  me !  That's  wheah  I  spent 
pretty  nigh  all  my  money! 

Louis :  Did  you  spend  all  you  had? 

I:  Law  me,  you  fellers  think  I'm 
busted  because  I  spent  fo'  hundred 
dollahs!  This  don't  look  like  I'm 
busted,  does  it? 

Here  I  reach  down  into  my  inside 
pocket  and  pull  out  a  roll  of  bills  as  large 
as  a  town  pump. 

Louis:  How  much  have  you  got 
there? 


132  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

I:    About  two  thousan',  I  reckon. 
I  ain't  counted  fo'  fouahteen  days. 

Louis:    Well,  let's  hear  the  rest. 
How  did  you  lose  your  two  hundred? 

I:  Bettin'. 

Louis :  What  kind  of  a  game? 

I:  Well,  this  heah  feller  he  got  to 
go  back  to  the  ho-tel  at  twelve 
o'clock.  So  I  make  up  with  a  Yan 
kee  feller.  I  told  him  I  was  awful 
dry  an'  I  wanted  to  get  a  drink  of 
liquor.  He  said  he  knowed  the  place 
wheah  they  had  good  whisky.  So  I 
went  along  into  a  saloon  wheah  they 
had  a  show  goin'  on.  We-all  took 
two  or  three  drinks  an'  peeped  into  a 
little  side  room  what  they  had.  A 
big  Yankee  chap  in  theah  was  runnin' 
a  game.  He  called  it  California 
euchre.  A  lot  of  fellers  was  bettin' 
five  and  ten  dollars  on  it.  They  was 
bettin'  they  could  tell  which  ceahd 
was  the  ace.  I  stood  theah  lookin' 
at  'em,  an'  I  could  see  the  prize  ceahd 


THREE  CARD  MONTE  133 

every  time.  I  spoke  up  an'  told  the 
feller  I  could  pick  it  out.  He  say, 
"How  much  you  \^ant  to  bet  you  kin 
pick  it  out?"  I  say,  "I  bet  you  two 
dollahs."  He  say,  "Twodollahs?  If 
that's  all  you  got  you  better  save  it 
an'  buy  crackers  an'  cheese  fo'  break 
fast."  That  sort  o'  made  me  mad,  so 
I  jest  put  my  hand  in  my  pocket  an' 
pull  out  two  hundred  dollahs,  an' 
say,  "Theah,  Yank,  kiver  that!"  He 
kivered  her,  but,  doggone  my  but 
tons,  if  I  didn't  lose  her!  Then  he 
say  do  I  want  to  bet  again,  an'  I  say 
I  got  the  rest  o'  my  money  down  in 
the  ho-tel.  I  say,  "Wait  a  few  min 
utes  an'  I'll  be  back  an'  play  again." 
I  went  on  back  to  the  ho-tel  an'  axed 
the  feller  what  was  working  behind 
the  counter  to  give  me  my  money 
what  was  in  the  big  iron  box.  He  had 
to  get  the  boss  up.  The  boss  he  ax 
me  if  I  was  goin'  away.  I  tole  him, 
no,  suh,  I  ain't  goin'  away  until  to- 


134,  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

morrow,  but  I'm  bettin'  with  a  feller, 
an'  I  want  to  go  bettin'  with  him 
some  moah.  He  say,  "You  don't 
want  to  bet  with  no  Chicago  fellers. 
They're  sharpers.  They'll  skin  you." 
I  say,  "Never  mind,  my  money  is 
mine."  Then  he  said  I  couldn't,  an'  I 
raised  so  much  hell  that  a  big  po-lice- 
man  tole  me  he  lock  me  up  if  I  don't 
go  to  bed. 

Nex'  mawnin'  I  went  up  to  that 
theah  place  wheah  I  lost  the  money, 
and  the  feller  with  that  ah  California 
euchre  game  was  at  home.  I  got  to 
talking  with  him,  an'  I  tried  to  git 
him  to  come  down  to  Las  Llagas  with 
me.  I  tole  him  if  he  would  fetch  that 
theah  game  along  he  would  jess  win 
moah  money  than  a  man  can  carry. 
He  said  he  had  a  gal  what  was  sick 
and  he  couldn't  leave.  But  he  tole 
me  he  would  do  the  nex'  bes'  thing  by 
me — f o'  a  hundred  he  would  give  me 
some  of  the  games  an'  show  me  how 


THREE  CARD  MONTE  135 

to  play  'em.  I  done  took  the  games, 
an'  I  been  practicin'  with  'em  ever 
since.  When  I  git  back  home,  dog 
gone  me,  if  I  don't  win  the  two  hun 
dred  back  an'  ten  times  moah  along 
side  of  it.  Down  theah  we  races 
horses  an'  fights  chickens  all  day 
Saturday  an'  Sunday.  Fust  time  I 
go  to  one  of  those  chicken  fights  I'll 
take  this  game  with  me.  Ain't  any 
tellin'  how  much  I'll  win. 

Louis:  So  you're  going  into  the 
business  wrhen  you  get  down  home, 
are  you? 

I:   Course  I  am. 

Louis  (winking  at  the  sucker)  : 
You  say  this  fellow  gave  some  of  the 
cards  to  you — have  you  them  with 
you? 

I:   Yessuh.    I  got  'em  right  here. 

Louis:  Let's  look  at  them.  I'd 
like  to  see  what  they  are  like. 

I  pull  out  from  my  inside  pocket  three 


136  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

greasy,  old  cards,  wrapped  up  in  a  hand 
kerchief.  Louis  unwraps  them  and  looks 
them  over. 

Louis:   Is  this  all  there  is  to  it? 
I:  Yessuh.    That's  all  they  is  to  it. 
Louis:   How  is  it  done?    I  don't 
see  anything  to  it. 

And  so,  talking  and  amusing  them  all 
the  time,  I  take  those  three  cards,  lay  them 
down  on  the  car  seat  or  a  convenient  book, 
and  show  them,  very  awkwardly,  how  a 
dealer  manipulates  three-card  monte. 
Louis  is  getting  more  and  more  interested 
by  my  antics,  and  the  sucker  is  falling  in. 
After  I  have  explained  how  you  must  pick 
the  ace  to  win : 

Louis:  You  say  you  have  to  pick 
the  ace  to  win?  Why,  I  think  that  I 
can  pick  the  ace  every  time. 

I :  Go  on,  le's  see  you  do  it.  Come 
on,  mistah,  you  an'  me  will  play  a 
little  game  fo'  fun! 


And  show  them,  very  awkwardly,  how  a  dealer  manipulates 
three-card  monte 


THREE  CARD  MONTE  137 

We  play,  and  Louis  picks  up  the  wrong 
card.  I  laugh  immoderately ;  I  turn  away 
toward  the  aisle  in  order  to  vent  my 
whoops. 

And  at  this  point  comes  the  first  impor 
tant  operation  of  the  game.  Louis  at 
tracts  the  attention  of  the  sucker;  shows 
by  the  expression  of  his  face  that  he  has 
some  scheme  afoot.  Then  he  reaches  over 
and  turns  up  a  corner  of  the  ace — "puts 
an  ear  on  it,"  as  we  say  in  the  profession. 
Get  that  in  your  mind;  the  ace  is  now 
marked  so  that  you  can  tell  its  back  as 
well  as  its  face.  The  sucker  sees  it ;  Louis 
sees  it;  I  am  the  only  person  in  the  trans 
action  who  is  supposed  not  to  see  it. 

I :  Let's  play  again,  mistah.  I  was 
jest  practic-ing.  I'd  like  to  see  a  man 
pick  that  ace! 

Louis:   I  bet  I  can. 

1:1  bet  you  a  ten-dollar  bill  you 
can't. 

Louis :  Well,  when  I  said  bet  I  was 


138  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

joking.  I  don't  want  to  bet.  I  never 
indulge. 

I:  Theah  she  is,  mistah,  theah  she 
is!  I  bet  you  a  ten-dollah  bill  you 
cain't  git  that  prize  ceahd! 

Louis :  Now  look  here,  Texas,  you 
don't  really  want  to  bet  ten  dollars 
that  I  can't  find  that  card! 

I:  Yessuh;  that  theah  is  exactly 
what  I  mean. 

Louis:  Well,  though  it  is  against 
my  principles,  I'll  bet  you! 

We  play,  and  Louis,  picking  with 
deadly  accuracy  the  card  whose  corner  he 
has  turned  up,  shows  the  ace  and  wins  the 
ten  dollars.  I  mutter  something  about  a 
mistake,  and  as  I  am  about  to  pay  an  idea 
seems  to  come  into  my  mind : 

I :  Look  heah,  mistah,  you  show  me 
you  got  ten  dollahs  you  could  'a'  paid 
if  I'd  'a'  won.  I  ain't  goin'  round 
heah  givin'  tens  to  everybody. 


THREE  CARD  MONTE  139 

Louis:  If  I  show  ten  dollars  that 
stake  will  belong  to  me? 

I:  That's 'zactly  what  I  mean. 

Louis  pulls  ten  dollars  from  his  pocket 
and  shows  it  to  me.  I  am  satisfied,  and  I 
pay.  I  skin  my  roll  and  bet  Louis  a 
twenty  he  can't  do  it  again.  We  appoint 
the  sucker  stakeholder  and  deposit  the 
money  in  his  hands.  Louis  picks  the  card 
with  the  little  ear  turned  up  on  it.  It  is 
the  ace,  of  course;  he  wins  again.  Then, 
warming  up,  he  tries  to  bet  me  a 
forty.  But  I  suddenly  grow  cagey. 

I:  No,  suh,  I  ain't  goin'  to  bet  you 
again.  Not  a  cent.  That  theah  feller 
what  teach  me  this  game  he  tell  me 
that  if  a  man  beat  me  two  times  run- 
nin'  I  wasn't  to  play  him  no  moah.  I 
ain't  goin'  to  play  no  moah  f  o'  money, 
but  jes'fo'fun. 

Then  there  is  a  little  business  between 


140  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

Louis  and  me — two  or  three  plays  in  which 
he  carefully  avoids  the  card  with  the  ear 
on  it  and  lets  me  win.  At  last  I  approach 
the  "joint,"  which  is  our  term  for  the 
actual  operation  of  separating  the  good- 
thing  from  his  money.  I  address  the 
sucker  and  ask  him  to  play  just  for  fun. 
Louis,  at  a  moment  when  I  have  turned 
away  to  laugh  or  spit  or  something,  whis 
pers  to  him,  "Take  the  wrong  card!"  He 
does  it,  and  I  win.  We  play  again  for 
fun.  Again  he  picks  the  wrong  card. 

I:    Mistah,  now  let's  you  an'  me 
play  fo'  a  bill! 

I  pull  out  my  wad  and  skin  off  a  bill 
without  looking  at  it.  Down  it  goes  on 
the  table.  We  play,  and  the  sucker  turns 
over  the  ace,  and  wins.  Louis  has  been 
holding  the  bill.  He  starts  to  pay  it  over, 
but  I  put  away  his  hand. 

I  (to  the  sucker) :  Look  heah,  mis- 


THREE  CARD  MONTE  141 

tab.    Could  you  'a'  paid  me  if  I  had 


won? 


MR.  SUCKER:  Of  course  I  could 
have  paid  you. 

Louis:  Hold  on,  Texas;  do  you 
realize  the  amount  of  the  bill  you've 
put  down  here?  It's  a  hundred  dol 
lars. 

I:  A  hundred  dollahs?  All  right. 
A  hundred  or  a  thousand,  if  it's  down 
it's  down.  Look  heah,  mistah,  is  you 
got  a  hundred  dollahs? 

MR.  SUCKER:  Yes,  and  three  hun 
dred.  (This  is  no  news  to  us.) 

Now  comes  the  psychological  moment. 
Watch  it.  The  sucker,  by  all  the  rules  of 
the  game,  has  won  my  hundred  dollars. 
Yet  he  never  gets  it.  He  is  induced  to 
put  that  hundred  straight  back  into  the 
game,  and  two  hundred  more.  I've  ex 
plained  the  mental  principle  of  this  al 
ready  in  describing  "big  joint."  The 
proceeding  looks  like  a  cinch  to  him.  He 


142  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

has  his  eye  on  the  "ear"  which  marks  the 
ace.  He  can't  lose.  What  difference  does 
it  make  if  he  throws  his  hundred  back  into 
the  game?  He  won't  quibble  over  such  a 
little  thing. 

I:  All  right.  I  bet  you  a  hundred. 
Now  show  up! 

MR.  SUCKER:  What  do  you  mean? 

I:  I  mean  put  up  jes'  the  same  as 
I  have  put  up.  Jes'  put  your  money 
up  heah  alongside  of  mine. 

Louis:  But  I  thought  you  said 
you'd  pay  him  as  soon  as  he  showed 
up  a  hundred-dollar  bill? 

I:  I  meant  when  he  showed  up 
jes'  the  same  as  I'm  showing  mine 
up.  Show  up  means  puttin'  up. 

The  sucker  lays  down  his  hundred. 

I:  Now  I'll  show  you  what  kind  o' 
spohts  we  got  down  in  Texas.  How 
much  more  you  got  theah? 


THREE  CARD  MONTE  143 

Louis:  This  gentleman  has  two 
hundred  more. 

I :  Well,  put  it  up — I  bet  you  an- 
othah  two  hundred.  That's  the  kind 
we  got  in  Texas. 

If  he  is  a  tough  sucker  and  hesitates, 
Louis  whispers  to  him:  "Go  on;  it's  a 
cinch.  You  might  as  well  get  his  money 
as  the  next  man."  When  we  get  the 
money  down,  his  three  hundred  against 
mine,  when  we  have  given  it  to  Louis,  as 
stakeholder: 

I :  Now,  mistah,  heah  we  go.  Le's 
shake  hands  on  it,  mistah.  If  you  git 
that  theah  prize  ceahd  the  money  all 
belongs  to  you.  If  you  don't  it  all 
belongs  to  me. 

While  we  are  shaking  hands  happens 
the  second  important  piece  of  manipula 
tion.  Louis,  with  one  swift  motion, 
straightens  out  that  ace,  and  puts  the  little 
ear  on  another  card,  the  nine-spot,  let  us 


144  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

say.  See  that?  It  is  the  climax  of  the 
joint.  Shaking  hands  on  it  serves  another 
purpose  than  distracting  the  victim's  at 
tention — it  prevents  him  from  saying 
afterward  that  we  played  before  he  was 
ready. 

He  turns  over  the  card  that  is  marked 
with  an  ear,  and  instead  of  the  ace  he  has 
the  nine! 

Immediately  a  lot  of  things  happen. 
Louis,  as  stakeholder,  has  the  money  in 
his  hand.  I  reach  over  and  grab  it.  He 
holds  on  to  it;  we  wrestle  for  five  or  six 
seconds  while  I  tear  it  away.  The  atten 
tion  of  the  sucker  is  all  on  his  money. 
He  does  not  see  Louis'  free  hand,  which 
has  taken  the  little  ear  off  of  the  nine  and 
put  it  back  on  the  ace  again. 

So  I've  got  his  money,  and  when  he 
looks  over  those  cards  the  ear  is  on  that 
ace.  His  false  turn  couldn't  possibly 
have  been  anything  but  a  terrible 
mistake. 

The  third  stage  of  the  broads  is  known 


THREE  CARD  MONTE  145 

in  the  profession  as  the  "round-up."  It 
consists  in  getting  rid  of  the  sucker  in  such 
a  manner  as  to  cause  the  least  possible 
trouble.  That  part  of  it  was  up  to  Louis. 
He  was  the  most  resourceful  man  in  the 
business,  and  he  had  no  general  line  of 
procedure.  His  methods  varied  with  the 
circumstances.  He  was  usually  very 
indignant  and  shocked  and  sympathetic. 
He  would  try  to  frighten  and  to  bully  me ; 
he  would  take  all  the  blame  upon  himself, 
and  promise  to  restore  half  the  money. 
If  we  sized  up  the  sucker  as  a  coward, 
Louis  and  I  might  start  a  scrap.  I'd 
draw  my  gun — an  old,  rusty  one  which 
I  couldn't  cock — and  howl: 

"If  I  knowed  which  one  o'  you  Yankee 
chaps  done  that  ol'  trick  I'd  blow  his  haid 
off!" 

If  the  sucker  started  to  report  to  the 
conductor  Louis  would  say: 

"Don't  you  know  it's  a  thousand  dollars 
fine  or  six  months  in  jail  for  gambling 
on  these  trains?" 


146  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

His  tricks  were  innumerable,  and  he 
always  ended  by  tying  his  man  up  com 
pletely,  in  one  way  or  another.  As  a  mat 
ter  of  fact,  only  about  half  of  the  suckers 
made  any  trouble. 

Now  and  then  the  "round-up"  got  ex 
citing. 

One  of  the  first  men  we  skinned  after  we 
put  our  game  on  the  road  was  a  preacher 
— not  a  man  of  any  standing,  but  an  ex- 
horter  from  the  Kentucky  mountains.  I 
remember  that  he  was  a  long  time  biting. 
Finally  the  real  trouble  occurred  to  me. 
He  didn't  want  a  witness.  I  put  my  palm 
to  my  face,  giving  Louis  the  office  to  go 
away,  and  when  the  preacher  and  I  were 
alone  I  got  him  for  a  hundred  and  fifty. 
He  didn't  say  anything  for  a  minute  or 
two  after  the  joint  came  off;  then  he 
reached  for  his  hip.  His  silence  had 
warned  me;  before  he  could  draw  I  had 
that  old,  rusty,  unloaded  gun,  which  I 
couldn't  cock,  against  his  breastbone.  We 
beat  it  from  that  train  in  a  hurry. 


THREE  CARD  MONTE  147 

THE    TOUGH    CITIZEN    OF    BREATHITT 

I  have  a  displaced  cartilage  in  my  nose 
to  remind  me  of  one  awful  slip.  We  had 
done  a  big,  Welsh  coal  miner.  He  was 
making  a  racket  about  it,  and  I  was  stall 
ing  in  my  character  of  a  Texan.  Finally 
he  leaned  over  me  and  said: 

"If  you  don't  give  me  back  my  money 
I'll  knock  your  head  off!" 

I  felt  a  little  mean  and  grouchy  that 
day,  and  this  man  had  a  kind  of  a  dis 
agreeable  personality.  I  lost  my  head  and 
my  temper.  Off  went  my  Texan  dialect, 
and  on  came  my  native  Indiana.  I  said: 

"You  can't  do  it!" 

The  words  weren't  out  of  my  mouth 
when  he  smashed  me  in  the  nose  so  hard 
that  it  nearly  put  me  out.  Johnny  had 
a  gun  on  him  before  he  could  hit  again. 

But  the  closest  call  came  from  a  tough 
citizen  of  Breathitt  County,  who  had  sold 
his  saloon  and  was  moving  with  the  pro 
ceeds  into  Wisconsin.  We  took  about 


148  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

two  hundred  from  him,  and  he  acted  like 
a  madman.  Just  when  I  thought  we  had 
him  quieted  down  he  reached  for  his  valise 
and  opened  it.  I  paid  no  particular  at 
tention  to  that  motion;  but  when  he 
straightened  up  I  was  looking  into  the 
barrel  of  a  Colt's  .44.  And  he  said,  very 
quietly : 

"Now  do  I  get  back  my  money?" 

Of  course,  there  was  only  one  thing  to 
do.  Without  dropping  the  dialect,  I  said : 

"Look  yeah,  mistah,  if  you're  going  to 
do  any  shootin'  I  don't  want  to  keep 
youah  money."  And  I  handed  it  over. 
After  that  I  made  Louis  watch  the  valises 
as  closely  as  he  did  the  hip-pockets.  It 
was  I,  and  not  Louis,  who  stood  to  die 
if  any  one  started  a  gun-play. 

Those  are  all  the  gun  episodes  which  I 
can  remember.  For  contrast,  there  was 
an  old  sheep-man  from  Montana  whom 
we  beat  out  of  five  hundred  when  we  were 
playing  the  Northwest,  looking  for  dis 
charged  Philippine  soldiers.  This  man 


THREE  CARD  MONTE  149 

woke  up  to  the  nature  of  our  game  soon 
after  we  made  the  joint.  He  said,  as  near 
as  I  can  remember: 

"Boys,  you  done  me  fair  and  square. 
It's  all  right ;  I  saw  that  marked  card  and 
I  was  out  to  do  you.  You  beat  me  to  it, 
and  I  ain't  kicking.  But  I'd  promised  to 
bring  my  wife  a  silk  umbrella,  and  in  Chi 
cago  I  forgot  it.  I  was  intending  to  stop 
off  at  Cheyenne  and  make  good.  Maybe 
you're  married  yourselves,  and  know  how 
it  is.  A  loan  of  a  twenty  would  oblige 
me."  He  got  it  all  right.  And  he  insisted 
on  taking  an  address  to  send  the  money 
back. 

Marsh,  the  third  member  of  our  mob, 
got  more  and  more  useful  as  time  went  on 
and  we  learned  to  play  for  bigger  and  big 
ger  money.  He  stayed  back  in  the  next 
car  and  cashed  the  drafts.  Comparatively 
few  men  carry  more  than  a  hundred  dol 
lars  or  so  in  cash.  When  the  sucker  got 
wild  to  play  he'd  remark  that  he  had  noth 
ing  on  him  but  a  draft.  Louis  would  say 


150  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

that  he  could  fix  that  up — he'd  seen  Mr. 
Marsh,  of  the  Polish  Hardware  Company, 
in  the  next  coach.  Mr.  Marsh  was  auditor 
and  collector  for  the  company ;  he  always 
carried  ready  money.  He'd  lead  the 
sucker  back,  and  Marsh,  on  the  recom 
mendation  of  Louis,  would  cash  the  draft. 
We  never  had  any  real  trouble  in  collect 
ing,  either.  Why  should  we?  The  draft 
was  indorsed  fair  enough ;  there  was  noth 
ing  about  the  transaction  with  Marsh 
which  savored  of  gambling.  The  bank 
had  to  cash  it,  and  if  the  sucker  tried  to 
stop  payment  we  hired  a  lawyer.  We 
were  the  only  monte  mob  on  the  road 
which  ever  got  around  the  draft  obstacle. 

Of  all  our  suckers  I'll  remember  longest 
the  only  one  who  ever  led  me  into  a  police- 
station. 

In  the  city  which  we  made  our  head 
quarters  we  employed  a  little  Jew  clothing 
merchant  as  lookout.  The  lumbermen 
traded  with  him  a  good  deal;  it  was 
his  job  to  tip  off  the  flush  ones.  One 


THREE  CARD  MONTE  151 

day  he  called  me  up  on  the  telephone. 

"There  was  a  drummer,  named  Silver- 
man,  in  here  today,"  he  said.  "He  carried 
a  lot  of  ready  money — I  seen  it.  He's 
gone  up  to  Arlington,  and  he's  coming 
back  here  Wednesday  afternoon  to  take 
the  rest  of  my  order."  Arlington,  as  I 
call  it,  was  a  town  about  twenty  miles  up 
the  road. 

Wednesday  morning  I  loafed  around 
the  hotels  at  Arlington,  found  the  one 
where  Silverman  was  staying,  and  learned 
that  he  was  going  to  take  the  eleven-fifteen 
train.  I  proceeded  to  the  next  block  and 
interviewed  a  bartender  friend  of  mine. 

.WORKING  A  BLUFF 

"Bill,"  I  said,  "I'm  coming  back  in  an 
hour  or  two.  I'm  a  whisky  salesman,  and 
you're  going  to  help  me  play  the  part. 
See?"  I  returned  to  the  hotel,  and  my 
man — I  had  a  good  description  of  him — 
walked  up  to  the  desk.  I  stepped  up  be- 


152  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

side  him,  and  asked  the  clerk  about  the 
next  train  home.  Silverman  cut  in. 

"Eleven-fifteen,"  he  said;  "I'm  taking 
that  train  myself." 

From  that  beginning  we  opened  conver 
sation.  He  asked  me  my  business.  I  said 
that  I  was  a  whisky  salesman.  Knowing 
that  he  had  an  interest  in  the  company 
which  he  represented,  I  went  on: 

"I'm  just  a  junior  member  of  the 
firm,  but  I'm  just  obliged  to  travel. 
You  can't  trust  drummers  any  more." 
That  touched  the  button,  and  he  loved 
me.  He  said: 

"That's  right.  Those  fellows  are  fierce. 
They  get  drunk  and  never  think  of  making 
money.  I  don't  know  what  this  traveling 
business  is  coming  to."  We  chummed 
down  to  the  station.  I  suggested  a  drink 
and  asked  him  if  he  minded  going  to  a 
little  place  which  bought  our  goods.  He 
accepted.  I  led  him  to  Bill,  the  bartender. 
As  soon  as  we  had  ordered,  Bill  said : 

"Mr.    Jones,   we   liked   the   last   two 


THREE  CARD  MONTE  153 

barrels  you  sold  us.     I  guess  I'll  want 
another  one." 

"Fine  business,"  said  I.  I  pulled  out 
some  regular  order  blanks  and  made  the 
entry.  That  established  me  completely 
with  Silverman. 

On  the  train  I  was  delighted  to  meet 
Louis  and  Marsh — old  friends  of  the  road 
whom  I  hadn't  seen  for  six  months.  I 
introduced  Mr.  Silverman.  We  got 
double  seats  in  the  day  coach,  and  I  re 
called  that  we  met  the  last  time  over  a 
game  of  euchre.  That  brought  out  the 
cards. 

We  weren't  playing  monte  with  him, 
you  see.  Monte  is  a  night  game.  What 
we  had  planted  was  "high  euchre  hand." 
Briefly,  you  start  an  argument  as  to 
whether  a  certain  hand  can  be  euchred  and 
prove  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  sucker  that 
it  cannot.  Later  in  the  game  you  deal  him 
that  very  hand,  induce  him  to  bet  his  shirt 
with  the  skeptic  of  the  game  that  it  can 
not  be  euchred — and  euchre  it. 


154  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

He  fell  easy.  We  won  three  hundred- 
odd  dollars,  his  watch  and  his  diamond  pin. 
When  we  left  he  had  no  suspicion  of  us. 

But  after  he  left  our  town  he  told  his 
troubles  to  a  hotel  man  who  used  to  be  a 
partner  of  Jakey,  and  the  hotel  man  let  in 
the  light  upon  Silverman. 

Sunday  was  our  day  off.  Sunday  after 
noon  Louis  and  Marsh  and  I  sat  in  our 
regular  hang-out  having  a  sociable  little 
game  of  hearts  among  ourselves  when  the 
door  flew  open  and  .in  came  Silverman. 
He  flew  straight  at  me,  yelling,  "Cheat!" 
"Fraud !"  I  cast  a  contemptuous  look  on 
this  raging,  roaring  rascal  who  dared  to 
bother  three  gentlemen  attending  to  their 
own  affairs,  and  I  said: 

"You  make  a  lot  of  noise.  You  lost  on 
a  card  game  and  now  you're  hedging." 

"You're  a  lot  of  professional  beats,  and 
you  ought  to  be  arrested." 

"Well,  you  won't  arrest  me,"  I  said. 

"By  Jiminy,  I  will !  I'm  going  down  to 
the  police-station  now." 


THREE  CARD  MONTE  155 

Knowing  the  way  we  had  the  police 
sewed  up,  that  proposition  interested  me. 
I  threw  down  my  cards  and  said: 

"See  here,  if  you  really  want  to  arrest 
me  I'll  save  you  the  trouble.  For  a  dollar 
I'll  go  down  with  you  and  give  myself  up 
at  the  station."  He  said,  "Do  you  mean 
it?"  And  I  reached  for  my  hat  and  said: 
"Sure  thing."  He  dug  up  the  dollar.  I 
pocketed  it  and  went  along  with  him. 

The  captain,  who  had  received  twenty- 
five  dollars  from  me  on  the  previous  Mon 
day,  and  expected  to  receive  twenty-five 
more  on  every  other  Monday  so  long  as 
we  both  should  graft,  looked  me  over 
severely,  and  said: 

"This  is  a  very  serious  complaint.  I  am 
surprised  to  hear  of  such  an  occurrence. 
By  the  way,  just  where  did  this  happen?" 

"Last  Wednesday,  on  the  train  coming 
from  Arlington,"  said  Silverman. 

"Just  after  you  left  Arlington?"  asked 
the  captain,  seeing  light  ahead. 

"Yes,  sir.    We  no  more  than  got  started 


156  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

than  this  scoundrel  began  to  play  cards 
with  me — " 

Here  the  captain  sawed  Silverman  short 
off.  He  said: 

"What  the  thunder  do  you  mean  by 
bringing  such  a  charge  in  here?  Arlington 
is  away  out  of  my  jurisdiction.  Are  you  a 
fool?  This  prisoner  is  discharged!" 

And  when  we  got  outside  Silverman 
tried  to  make  me  give  his  dollar  back. 

Six  weeks  later  we  were  making  a 
monte  touch.  I  always  kept  my  eyes  open 
for  everything,  and  I  noticed  one  passen 
ger  who  wasn't  asleep — a  little,  quiet  man, 
who  sat  with  his  hat  pulled  down  over 
his  eyes  watching  the  game.  A  few 
minutes  later  that  little  man  walked  up 
to  me. 

"Say,"  he  said,  "are  you  the  gang  that . 
did  Silverman  out  of  his  roll  and  his  watch 
and  his  diamond,  six  weeks  ago?" 

I  sized  him  up  and  decided  that  he  was 
friendly  before  I  answered: 

"Yes,  if  you  want  to  know.    Why?" 


THREE  CARD  MONTE  157 

He  threw  an  arm  over  my  shoulder  and 
said: 

"I  want  to  shake  your  hand.  If  my  wife 
was  here  she  would  want  to  shake  your 
hand — she  would  kiss  you.  He  is  the 
meanest  man  in  Cincinnati!" 

WHAT    MR.    BELMONT    MISSED 

Probably  O.  H.  P.  Belmont  never  knew 
how  near  he  came  to  having  an  adventure 
the  last  time  he  visited  Yellowstone  Park. 
Louis  and  I  had  been  to  the  Portland 
Exposition  for  a  vacation;  we  weren't 
playing.  As  we  drew  on  the  stretch  be 
yond  Livingston  I  saw  that  Louis  had 
struck  up  an  acquaintance  with  a  prosper 
ous-looking  couple  in  the  compartment.  I 
paid  no  attention  to  that  until  he  flashed 
the  office  for  "go  out  on  the  platform." 
He  joined  me  there. 

"That's  O.  H.  P.  Belmont,"  said  Louis. 
"His  private  car  missed  connections, 
and  he's  had  to  take  the  Pullman.  He 


158  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

doesn't  know  that  I  know  who  he  is." 

"Well,  let's  play  for  him,  then,"  said  I. 

But  when  Louis  thought  it  over  he  lost 
his  nerve  completely. 

"He  ain't  carrying  any  ready  cash," 
said  Louis.  "Those  big  magnates  don't 
have  to.  And  Marsh  ain't  here  to  cash 
drafts.  We  don't  know  the  train  men, 
either,  and  besides,  my  wife  is  along." 

"If  we  can  get  his  promissory  note  he'll 
cash  it.  If  he  fails  to  make  good  we  can 
threaten  him  with  the  newspapers,"  said  I. 

Louis  couldn't  see  it  that  way,  and  the 
Belmonts  had  connected  with  their  private 
train  before  I  talked  him  over. 

People  are  sure  funny.  Twenty  times 
after  that  Louis  said  to  me: 

"I  wish  we'd  had  the  nerve  to  play  for 
O.  H.  P.  Belmont  that  time." 

And  I'd  always  answer,  never  letting 
on  that  I  had  any  sarcastic  feelings: 

"Yes,  Louis,  I  wish  we  had!" 


CHAPTER  V 

WHY  I  CUT  IT  OUT 

TT  is  the  safety  of  any  con  game  that 
•*•  your  sucker  generally  is  your  accom 
plice.  The  police  have  trouble  in  making 
any  charge  stick;  and  if  your  steerer  has 
done  his  work  right  the  police  never  know 
of  it,  anyway.  I  suppose  that  I  have  been 
arrested  half  a  dozen  times,  but  I  never 
stayed  in  j  ail  more  than  a  few  hours.  Just 
one  conviction  stands  against  me.  I  was 
arrested  and  fined  ten  dollars  for  stealing 
an  umbrella.  The  joke  is  that  I  didn't 
steal  it!  The  judge  who  soaked  me  never 
suspected  what  he  might  have  found  if  he 
had  gone  deeper  into  my  life. 

But  I've  been  in  tight  places ;  and  think 
ing  about  my  escapes  had  a  lot  to  do  with 
my  final  change  of  profession.  One  of  the 
narrowest  occurred  while  I  was  playing 

159 


160  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

assayer  for  the  gold-brick  game  with  old 
man  Stallings. 

That,  if  I  remember,  was  about  eighteen 
hundred  and  ninety-five.  The  gold-brick 
game  was  getting  too  well  known  for 
safety.  "Gold  brick"  had  already  be 
come  slang  for  a  bunco  game;  and  when 
that  happens  you  might  as  well  quit. 
Stallings  was  one  of  the  three  best  opera 
tors  in  the  country.  He  stuck  to  it,  in 
spite  of  all  the  danger,  because  he  didn't 
know  how  to  do  anything  else. 

I  doubt  if  most  people  thoroughly  un 
derstand  that  game.  The  grafters  traveled 
in  gangs  of  three — the  steerer,  the  assayer 
and  the  Indian.  The  play  was  for  country 
bankers.  When  the  steerer  and  operator, 
who  was  the  most  important  man  in  the 
combination,  had  his  sucker  located,  he 
spun  the  following  yarn: 

His  partner  in  the  mining  business  had 
died  and  left  him  a  valuable  mine,  which 
he  held  in  partnership  with  an  old  Indian. 
He  and  the  Indian  had  been  working  it 


WHY  I  CUT  IT  OUT  161 

for  some  time,  and  they  had  taken  out 
enough  gold  to  make  brick,  worth  forty 
thousand  dollars.  He  had  started  East 
to  sell  it.  But  the  Indian  was  suspicious ; 
he  had  insisted  on  coming  along.  When 
they  got  to  the  river,  the  Indian  would  go 
no  farther.  He  established  camp  in  a 
lonely  spot  just  over  the  river,  and  there 
he  and  the  bricks  stuck  tight.  The  Indian 
believed  that  his  half  of  the  bricks  was 
worth  only  ten  thousand  dollars,  whereas 
it  was  worth  twenty  thousand.  If  the 
sucker  would  put  down  thirty  thousand 
dollars,  the  steerer's  share  in  full  and  half 
the  Indian's  share,  he  could  have  the 
bricks,  thereby  making  a  profit  of  ten 
thousand  dollars.  When  the  sucker  was 
worked  up  to  the  joint,  the  steerer  would 
take  him  to  the  lonely  camp  across  the 
river.  That  meeting  occurred  at  night  by 
the  light  of  a  dim  camp-fire;  and  the 
sucker  couldn't  see  that  the  Indian  was  a 
white  man,  made  up.  On  account  of  their 
features,  Jews  were  generally  used  for 


162  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

Indians.  Ours  was  a  man  named  Baum, 
we'll  say. 

The  assayer,  my  job  in  our  team,  be 
came  necessary  as  the  game  got  well 
known.  In  the  early  days,  the  steerer 
got  the  Indian  to  loosen  up  on  one  gold 
brick  for  an  evening,  while  he  and  the 
sucker  took  it  to  a  jeweler  to  be  assayed. 
The  jeweler  would  bore  into  it  anywhere 
he  pleased,  and  put  the  sample  filings  into 
an  envelope.  Somewhere  in  the  transac 
tion,  the  steerer  would  change  that  en 
velope  for  another  just  like  it,  but  con 
taining  real  gold  filings.  So  when  the 
jeweler  made  the  assay  he  would  report 
that  it  was  real,  virgin  gold. 

But  the  jewelers  all  got  on  to  the  game; 
you  couldn't  risk  doing  business  with 
them.  So  when  he  had  the  brick  in  his 
pocket,  old  Stallings  would  take  his  man 
to  the  leading  jewelry  store  of  the  place. 
On  some  pretext  or  other,  he  would  leave 
the  sucker  at  the  door  while  he  went  in 
side,  and,  in  plain  sight,  held  a  conversa- 


WHY  I  CUT  IT  OUT  163 

tion  with  the  proprietor.  What  he  really 
did  was  to  ask  the  jeweler  for  one  of  his 
cards,  saying  that  he  might  be  sending 
down  to  buy  a  watch  next  week.  Also, 
would  the  jeweler  please  write  his  own 
name  on  the  back?  He'd  rather  deal  with 
the  head  of  the  firm  direct.  Then  Stall- 
ings  would  go  out  and  say  to  the  sucker: 

"This  man  says  that  he  doesn't  make 
assays  but  that  a  government  assayer 
named  Baker  is  staying  at  the  Eagle 
Hotel  this  week.  He  gave  me  this  card, 
with  his  name  written  on  it,  to  show  that 
we  are  all  right."  Then  they'd  proceed 
to  the  Eagle  Hotel  and  ask  for  Mr.  Baker 
—me,  you  understand.  And  I'd  make  the 
assay  and  certify  that  this  was  the  real 
thing  in  gold  and  that  the  bricks,  by 
weight,  were  worth  forty-one  thousand 
dollars.  Besides  that,  it  was  my  duty  to 
shadow  Stallings  and  his  sucker  all 
through  the  transaction,  standing  ready  to 
help  in  case  of  any  emergency. 

When  I  say  that  we  worked  this  game, 


164  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

I  mean  to  say  that  we  tried  it.  We 
traveled  for  three  months  up  and  down  the 
Ohio  River,  playing  at  small  bankers,  and 
never  turned  a  penny.  Two  suckers  bit 
and  got  as  far  as  the  assay,  but  they  de 
veloped  cold  feet  and  pulled  out.  The 
third  was  a  greedy  Scotchman.  He  looked 
very  good  to  us.  On  the  morning  set  for 
the  assay  I  was  shadowing,  as  usual.  A 
small  boy  shoved  a  note  into  my  hand.  It 
read,  in  Stallings'  handwriting: 

"You  two  fellows  skip.  He's  on,  and 
it's  all  your  fault!" 

THE    COLLAPSE    OF    THE    GOLD-BRICK    IN 
DUSTRY 

When  I  read  this  note,  Stallings  and 
the  sucker  were  just  entering  a  saloon. 
I  went  to  the  front  door  and  took  my  place 
there,  thinking  to  enter  into  conversation 
with  the  sucker  and  keep  him  interested 
while  Stallings  made  his  getaway.  After 
two  or  three  minutes  the  banker  came  out 
alone.  He  seemed  a  little  excited;  and  I 


WHY  I  CUT  IT  OUT  165 

saw  that  he  was  going  toward  the  police 
station — that  station  was  the  first  place 
we  located  when  we  staked  out  a  new 
town.  I  figured  that  Stallings  must  have 
given  him  the  slip ;  and  it  was  my  cue  to 
beat  it  myself.  I  hurried  across  the  river 
to  the  Indian  camp,  notified  Baum,  and 
walked  over  to  the  next  town,  where  I 
took  a  train  East.  We  had  agreed  in  case 
of  trouble  and  separation  to  meet  in  a 
Philadelphia  hotel.  I  went  to  Philadel 
phia,  met  Baum  there  the  next  day,  arid 
waited  a  week  before  Stallings  appeared. 

He  had  lost  the  Scotchman  in  the 
saloon,  had  run  through  the  back  door,  and 
had  persuaded  the  driver  of  a  truck- 
wagon  to  give  him  a  ride.  That  took  him 
outside  the  city  limits.  He  made  his  way 
to  Peoria,  where  a  saloon-keeper  who  used 
to  be  a  pickpocket  concealed  him  for  five 
days.  Then,  hearing  nothing  from  the 
police,  Stallings  dared  to  take  a  train  for 
Philadelphia. 

When  I  asked  him  how  it  was  my  fault, 


166  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

Stallings  refused  to  say  a  word.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  it  wasn't  my  fault  at  all. 
Stallings  was  naturally  a  good-natured 
fellow,  but  the  responsibility  of  it  made 
him  a  wild,  irritable  hound  when  he  was 
on  the  job.  I  never  did  learn  what  put 
the  sucker  wise.  I  refused  then  and  there 
to  mingle  any  longer  in  his  game.  He'd 
have  done  well  to  cut  it  out  himself;  for 
he  is  in  a  Southern  penitentiary  now,  serv 
ing  a  long  term. 

When  I  ducked  from  the  town  of  the 
Scotch  banker  I  left  our  bricks  in  the 
hotel.  Only  last  year  I  was  in  that  hotel 
again — this  time  as  a  respectable  business 
man.  And  I  found  that  they  were  using 
our  old  bricks  as  doorstoppers!  They 
were  made  of  brass  and  lead  composition, 
with  a  veneer  of  gold  leaf  and  a  weighting 
of  mercury.  Every  morning  we  used  to 
take  them  out  and  dust  them  off  and  fix 
up  the  corners,  where  the  veneer  had 
rubbed  off,  with  more  gold  leaf. 

You  remember,  probably,  how  the  rush 


WHY  I  CUT  IT  OUT  167 

to  the  Klondike  started.  On  Saturday,  no 
one  had  ever  heard  of  Dawson  City.  On 
Sunday  morning  the  papers  were  full  of 
it,  and  the  overland  trains  were  jammed 
with  mushers  hurrying  to  Alaska.  At  the 
time,  Jeff  Steers  and  I  were  working 
about  Chicago,  playing  mainly  for  the 
truck- farmers.  We  hadn't  been  doing 
very  well,  and  we  decided  that  a  mining 
country  with  a  strike  was  just  about  the 
place  for  us.  Steers  was  a  friend  of  Soapy 
Smith.  He  figured  that  you  couldn't  keep 
Soapy  away  with  a  twenty-mule  team. 
We  got  him  on  the  wire.  He  answered: 
"Meet  me  in  Seattle." 

AN  ALLIANCE  WITH  SOAPY  SMITH 

At  the  time  we  were  just  about  broke, 
but  we  hooked  a  German  truck-farmer, 
beat  him  out  of  six  hundred  dollars,  left 
two  hundred  of  it  behind  with  our  families, 
and  started.  Soapy  met  us  at  the  train. 
He  had  just  money  enough  to  get  himself 


168  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

to  Skaguay.  The  police  of  Seattle  were 
pretty  strict,  and  we  couldn't  find  any 
thing  to  do.  However,  Steers  and  I  pro 
ceeded  to  a  lumber  town  near  by,  caught 
a  sucker,  and,  by  playing  the  card  game 
which  we  call  "giving  him  the  best  of  it," 
we  raised  three  hundred  dollars — enough, 
with  what  we  had,  to  take  us  into  Skaguay. 
A  lot  of  foolishness  has  been  written 
about  Soapy  Smith.  As  a  grafter,  he  was 
nothing  more  than  a  poor  fool.  He 
couldn't  manipulate,  he  couldn't  steer,  he 
couldn't  do  anything.  But  he  had  a  lot 
of  nerve  and  fight,  and  he  was  just  con 
ceited  enough  to  pose  as  a  bad  man.  That 
made  him  valuable  wherever  the  grafters 
needed  a  head  and  protector.  When  we 
reached  Skaguay  we  found  a  job  for 
Soapy  at  once.  The  town  was  only  a 
transportation  point,  a  stopping  place  for 
the  mushers  who  were  going  on  into  Daw- 
son.  They  all  had  money;  and  most  of 
them  were  reckless  with  it.  There  was 
hardly  any  city  government,  and  the 


WHY  I  CUT  IT  OUT  169 

permanent  citizens,  who  were  living  off  the 
mushers  themselves,  didn't  particularly 
object  to  our  game.  I  played  three-card 
monte  myself,  picking  up  my  steerers  from 
two  or  three  excellent  ones  who  had  come 
up  independently.  Even  as  early  as  that 
I  was  acting  the  innocent  Texan;  and 
though  I  hadn't  worked  my  spiel  up  to 
perfection  yet,  it  was  pretty  entertaining. 
Well,  I've  had  a  gang  of  twenty  or  thirty 
Skaguay  business  men  stand  around  and 
watch  me  work,  just  for  the  fun  of  the 
thing! 

Still,  there  was  always  a  Purity  Brigade 
which  wanted  to  stop  us.  Soapy's  j  ob  was 
to  act  as  protector  for  the  whole  gang, 
bribing  officials  who  would  take  money, 
and  intimidating  those  who  wouldn't.  For 
that  he  charged  a  sixth  of  our  profits,  after 
the  nut  was  taken  out.  Many  kicked  at 
the  price.  A  gang  of  shell-workers  struck 
out  on  the  train  toward  Dawson  and 
worked  independently.  I've  heard  that 
they  made  twenty  thousand  dollars  while 


170  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

the  graft  lasted.  I  started  once  to  try 
Dawson  on  my  own  hook.  I  was  half- way 
up  the  pass  when  some  Northwest 
Mounted  Police  told  me  that  a  man 
couldn't  get  out  of  Dawson  all  winter.  No 
town  for  me  where  I  couldn't  make  a 
quick  getaway!  I  doubled  back  to  Ska- 
guay. 

I  found  trouble  in  the  air.  The  official 
who  was  most  troublesome  to  us  was  the 
surveyor-general.  He  warned  Soapy  to 
quit,  and  Soapy  warned  him  to  look  out 
for  bullets.  Business  men  who  had  been 
my  friends  began  to  cut  me  on  the  streets. 
Every  day  you  heard  rumors  of  a  vigi 
lance  committee. 

I  stopped  one  morning  for  breakfast 
at  the  restaurant  of  a  Jap  who  stood  in 
with  us.  As  he  laid  down  my  ham  and 
eggs  he  made  a  circle  around  his  neck 
with  his  finger  and  pointed  heaven 
ward. 

"The  deuce  you  say,"  said  I.    "When?" 

"Yesterday,"  said  the  Jap. 


WHY  I  CUT  IT  OUT  171 

"How  many?"  said  I.  He  counted  on 
four  fingers. 

"What  for?"  said  I. 

He  imitated  the  motion  of  a  man  manip 
ulating  the  shells.  And  the  grin  of  the 
simple-minded  Oriental  showed  that  he 
thought  I  was  in  bad. 

I  went  out  on  the  street.  The  people 
looked  at  me  crosswise.  Every  one  had 
heard  that  the  four  shell-workers  who 
worked  on  the  Dawson  trail  had  been 
lynched.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  they  had 
only  been  run  off  the  trail;  but  Skaguay 
didn't  know  any  different  as  long  as  I 
lingered. 

I  hunted  up  Soapy,  and  told  him  that 
we  were  overdue  in  Seattle. 

"You  ain't  got  no  nerve,"  said  Soapy. 

"No,"  said  I,  "maybe  not.  But  neither 
do  I  want  to  secrete  a  parcel  of  bullets  in 
my  inside  from  somebody's  shooting- 
pistol."  I  took  passage  on  a  steamer 
which  left  that  afternoon. 

Two  days  later  Soapy  got  his.     The 


172  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

vigilantes  were  meeting  on  a  wharf. 
Soapy  walked  straight  up  to  them  with 
his  gun— he  surely  had  nerve,  that  fel 
low.  The  surveyor-general  was  the  man 
he  wanted.  They  drew  simultaneously. 
The  surveyor-general  dropped,  but  he 
shot  Soapy  from  the  ground.  Both  died 
that  day. 

Alaska  people  have  talked  like  a  dime 
novel  about  the   Soapy   Smith  gang  In 
Skaguay.    Only  lately,  a  paper  said  that 
our  "coffee  and  doughnut  men"  used  to 
rob  and  kill  people,  and  drop  their  bodies 
into  the  bay.     That  is  rank  foolishness. 
Grafters  don't  work  that  way.     Soapy 
wouldn't  have  protected  any  man  who  did. 
The  straight  money  from  three-card  monte 
and  the  shells  came  so  easy  that  we  would 
have  been  crazy  to  take  such  risks,  even 
if  we  had  been  thugs  and  murderers.    A 
man   who  knows   anything   about   graft 
realizes  the  rattle-headedness  of  such  talk. 
And  I  know  better  than  any  one  else,  be 
cause  I  was  on  the  inside. 


WHY  I  CUT  IT  OUT  173 

THE   YELLOW   DIAMOND    GAME 

So  I  was  back  in  Seattle,  with  a  little 
capital  but  with  no  job  in  sight,  and  the 
town  tight  shut.  Then  I  met  Baum  who, 
you  remember,  was  Indian  for  the  Stall- 
ings  gold-brick  team.  He  had  a  game 
which  was  then  pretty  new  to  this  country, 
and  entirely  new  to  the  Pacific  Coast.  A 
woman  brought  it  over  from  Hungary. 

You  take  a  yellow  diamond  and  treat 
it  with  a  solution  of  anilin  dye,  and  it 
becomes  a  pure,  commercial  white.  The 
stuff  sticks  for  two  or  three  weeks.  The 
only  way  to  get  it  off  immediately  is  to 
soak  the  diamond  in  alcohol.  If  you  put 
it  under  a  miscroscope  you  can  see  the 
little  particles  of  the  dyestuff.  Other 
wise,  there  is  nothing  by  which  the  best 
expert  can  detect  the  fake.  A  little  more 
anilin  dye  makes  it  a  beautiful  steel-blue. 
In  a  pinch,  this  change  of  color  can  be 
made  by  rubbing  it  with  a  common  indeli 
ble  pencil. 


174  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

At  that  time,  off-color,  yellow  dia 
monds  were  worth  from  thirty-five  to 
forty-five  dollars  a  carat,  commercial 
whites  a  hundred,  and  good  steel-blues  a 
hundred  and  twenty-five.  Baum  and  I 
would  buy  a  stock  of  yellows,  doctor  them, 
and  sell  or  soak  them  for  seventy-five 
dollars  a  carat.  The  pawnbrokers  bit  like 
codfish.  When  they  realized  that  they 
had  twenty-five  dollars  the  best  of  us  on 
that  transaction,  they  wanted  to  follow  us 
into  the  street  and  kiss  us. 

We  began  at  Vancouver  and  streaked 
straight  down  the  Pacific  Coast,  stinging 
three  or  four  pawnbrokers  in  every  large 
city,  except  San  Francisco,  which  we  left 
alone,  and  at  least  one  in  all  the  smaller 
cities  like  San  Jose  and  Fresno.  A  trade 
journal  printed  remarks  on  the  unprece 
dented  demand  for  yellow  diamonds  on 
the  Coast  that  fall. 

We  struck  a  snag  in  one  of  the  cities 
of  Southern  California.  We  had  got  so 
swelled  up  by  success  that  we  looked  down 


WHY  I  CUT  IT  OUT  175 

on  pawnbrokers;  we  were  playing  for 
bankers.  We  staked  out  an  avaricious 
old  sucker,  whom  we'll  call  Sylvester.  He 
was  president  of  a  savings-bank. 

I  called  at  his  office  with  "commercial 
white"  diamonds,  worth,  on  the  face  of 
them,  about  sixteen  hundred  dollars,  and 
a  hard-luck  story.  I  was  a  bookmaker, 
who  had  gone  on  the  San  Francisco  tracks 
and  was  making  my  way  East.  I  had 
struck  town  with  a  sick  wife,  and  I  needed 
money  right  away.  Here  were  her 
diamonds,  worth  sixteen  hundred  dollars. 
I  wanted  a  thousand  on  them  for  a  month. 
He  sent  them  over  to  a  jeweler  in  the  next 
block.  The  jeweler  reported  that  they 
were  worth  a  little  more  than  sixteen  hun 
dred  dollars.  Sylvester  gave  me  the  thou 
sand  dollars ;  but  he  charged  me  a  hundred 
and  fifty  dollars  interest  for  a  month's 
loan! 

That  afternoon  we  played  for  another 
jeweler  who  did  a  little  pawnbroking  on 
the  side.  He  retired  to  his  private  office, 


176  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

came  back  after  five  minutes  or  so,  and 
handed  them  back  to  us,  saying  that  he 
didn't  want  to  make  so  large  a  loan  in 
a  dry  year. 

That  jeweler  happened  to  be  the  only 
man  on  the  Pacific  Coast  who  ever  heard 
about  our  game.  While  he  was  in  his 
office  he  had  put  a  glass  on  the  diamonds 
and  detected  the  specks.  The  trouble  was 
that  he  was  too  blamed  generous.  He 
wrote  a  note  to  his  competitor  across  the 
street,  warning  him  of  our  game.  His 
competitor  remembered  the  diamonds 
which  he  had  experted  for  Sylvester  the 
day  before.  He  beat  it  for  the  bank, 
tested  our  diamonds  with  alcohol  and  the 
glass,  and  broke  the  horrid  news  to  the 
sucker. 

The  next  morning  the  chief  of  police 
stepped  up  to  me. 

"I  want  to  see  you,"  said  he. 

"All  right,"  said  I,  though  forty  shivers 
were  running  through  my  sides. 

I  knew,  of  course,  that  we  had  been 


WHY  I  CUT  IT  OUT  177 

caught.  The  thief  took  me  straight  to 
Sylvester.  I  thought  Mr.  Sucker  would 
eat  me  up  when  I  entered  his  office.  But 
he  got  a  grip  on  himself  and  dropped  his 
voice  to  the  low  tone  which  people 
use  when  they  are  talking  the  real  busi 
ness. 

"I  want  back  the  thousand  dollars  which 
I  gave  you  yesterday  on  some  fake  dia 
monds,"  said  he.  I  simply  laughed  at 
him. 

"What  for?"  said  I.  "You  aren't  back 
ing  out,  are  you?" 

"You  are  an  impudent  rascal,"  said  he. 
"Those  diamonds  are  not  worth  a  thou 
sand  dollars." 

"Well,  you  had  the  opinion  of  the  best 
jeweler  in  town  that  they  were  worth 
sixteen  hundred,"  said  I. 

"He's  changed  his  opinion,  and  you 
know  it,"  said  he.  "Those  are  painted, 
yellow  diamonds  and  worth  no  more  than 
six  hundred  dollars." 

"Well,  suppose  they   aren't,"   said   I, 


178  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

"didn't  you  take  that  risk  when  you  got 
them  experted?" 

"I'll  have  no  more  of  your  impudence," 
said  he.  "You  give  me  back  that  thou 
sand  dollars  and  take  your  diamonds,  or 
you  go  to  jail." 

"I  can't,"  said  I;  "I  have  made  other 
use  of  the  money."  That  was  true.  Baum 
and  I  had  found  a  faro  game  the  night 
before. 

All  this  time  I  was  keeping  my  face 
straight  and  steady,  and  thinking  like  a 
dynamo  inside.  And  as  soon  as  I  saw 
that  he  was  more  eager  to  get  his  money 
back  than  to  put  me  in  jail,  I  formed  my 
plan. 

"Will  you  give  back  that  money  or  go 
to  j  ail  ?"  he  said.  I  answered : 

"Oh,  you  won't  put  me  in  jail." 

"I  will,  in  two  minutes,  unless  you  give 
up  that  money !" 

"Now  see  here,"  said  I,  "we're  both 
business  men  together.  Let's  have  a  little 
talk.  It  will  do  you  no  manner  of  good 


WHY  I  CUT  IT  OUT  179 

to  put  me  in  jail.  My  first  visitors  will  be 
the  reporters,  and  I  always  make  it  a 
point  to  favor  the  gentlemen  of  the  press. 
It  will  look  great,  simply  fine,  in  the 
papers.  The  president  of  the  savings-bank 
is  loaning  his  depositors'  money  on  fake 
diamonds.  The  president  of  the  savings- 
bank  is  charging  a  hundred  and  fifty  dol 
lars  interest  on  the  loan  of  a  thousand  for 
a  month.  I've  got  the  loan  slip  to  prove 
it.  I  won't  be  the  star  feature  of  the  valu 
able  reading  articles  in  their  publica 
tions,"  I  said.  "The  star  feature  will  be 
you.3' 

I  thought  he'd  explode.    He  yelled: 

"Chief,  take  that  man  to  jail!"  And 
I  swept  out. 

The  chief  was  a  good  fellow.  He  said, 
as  we  got  a  car : 

"If  you  did  him,  I'm  glad  of  it,  for  he's 
robbed  more  widows  and  orphans  than 
any  other  man  in  town." 

"I  guess  that's  about  the  straight  of  it," 
said  I. 


180  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

"Yes,  you've  got  my  sympathy — say, 
who  are  you,  anyway,  and  where  do  you 
come  from?"  said  he. 

"Many  thanks  for  your  sympathy," 
said  I ;  "but  I  don't  want  to  pay  for  it  too 
heavy.  Call  me  Clarence  Smith,  of  Du- 
luth." 

"I  guess  he's  got  you,"  said  the  chief. 

"Oh,  no,"  said  I.  "You  will  never  see 
me  through  the  bars  this  trip.  There  will 
be  a  telephone  message  waiting  for  you  at 
the  station."  The  chief  only  laughed  at 
me. 

CUTTING  IT  OUT  FOR  KEEPS 

At  the  station  the  desk-sergeant  asked: 
"What  is  the  prisoner's  name?" 
"Clarence  Smith,"  said  the  chief.    The 
sergeant  entered  my  name  and  looked  up 
like  a  man  who  remembers  something  sud 
denly,  and  said: 

"Oh,  Chief,  I  forgot.  There's  a  tele 
phone  message  in  the  office  for  you.  Mr. 


WHY  I  CUT  IT  OUT  181 

Sylvester,  of  the  savings-bank,  wants  you 
to  be  sure  to  call  him  up,  right  away!" 

Five  minutes  later  Baum  and  I  were 
taking  a  drink  at  the  hotel. 

As  I  got  older  I  got  to  looking  about 
me,  and  to  remembering  the  finish  of  the 
grafters  I  had  known.  One  or  two  had 
pulled  out  into  business  and  done  well. 

But  there  was  Soapy  Smith,  dead  on 
the  wharf  at  Skaguay,  and  there  was  Old 
Man  Stallings  in  the  penitentiary,  and 
there  was  Slippery  Sills  coming  off  a 
brake-beam  to  touch  me  for  a  five.  The 
rest  had  died  drunks  and  hoboes,  opium 
fiends,  or  convicts,  or  just  cheap  bums. 
And  about  that  time  I  saw  an  open 
ing  into  a  legitimate  business.  I  had  left 
the  road  for  a  few  days  to  attend  to  a 
small  private  transaction  for  a  relative. 
Something  that  happened  brought  on  an 
attack  of  sourball.  Such  things  are  rare 
with  me;  I  have  a  pretty  happy-go-lucky 
nature.  I  lay  awake  all  one  night  in  a 
little  Iowa  hotel,  looking  facts  square  in 


182  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  CON  MAN 

the  face.  Next  morning,  as  soon  as  the 
office  opened,  I  wired  Louis: 

"Get  another  spieler.  Am  cutting  it 
out." 

I  took  a  train  home  to  my  family,  and  I 
have  never  grafted  since.  You  may  not 
believe  me,  but,  whether  this  business 
turns  out  a  fortune  or  a  fizzle,  I  am  never 
going  to  graft  again. 

But  seeing  as  I'm  trying  to  tell  you  the 
whole  truth  I've  got  to  put  in  one  thing 
more.  Sometimes  I  see  a  stranger  who 
looks  like  easy  money.  Sometimes  a  fel 
low,  with  good-thing  printed  all  over  him, 
struts  into  my  hotel.  Then  the  old  feeling 
rises  up  under  my  vest  and  makes  me 
itch  to  get  at  him.  Perhaps  I  can  make 
it  clear  to  you  in  this  way :  You  like  hunt 
ing?  You  know  your  sensation  when  a 
buck  steps  out  of  cover  and  you  lift  your 
gun  to  cover  him?  Well,  it's  like  that, 
only  a  hundred  times  stronger. 

There's  no  hunting  in  the  world  like 
hunting  men. 


"  It  really  deserves  a  corner  by  itself  on  the  bookshelf," 
.«ays  the  Boston  Transcript  of 

THE   CITY   THAT  WAS 

A  Requiem  of  Old  San  Francisco 

by 
WILL  IRWIN 

This  tribute  to  the  San  Francisco  that 
passed  away  with  the  disaster  of  April,  1906, 
has  become  classic.  Originally  it  was  printed 
in  the  New  York  Sun,  having  been  written 
with  a  copy-boy  at  the  author's  elbow.  In 
spired  by  the  thought  of  intimate  ties  which 
made  every  feature  of  the  city  dear  to  him, 
and  the  dangers  by  which  it  was  still  threat 
ened,  Mr.  Irwin  dashed  off  a  prose  epic 
which  will  always  remain  the  truest  memorial 
to  San  Francisco's  greatness. 

Board  covers,  net  50  cents,  postage  4  cents 

Limp  leather,  in  box,  autographed  by  Mr.  Irwin ; 
net  $2.00,  postage  8  cents 

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"  She  is  a  lovable  creature,  as  fine  a  portraiture  as  any 
writer  of  tales  has  added  to  our  literature  in  a  generation," 
says  the  Rochester  Post-Express  of  Denise  in 

A  PRINCESS  AND  ANOTHER 

by 

LIEUT.  STEPHEN  JENKINS 

"This  capital  story  ....  shows  as  great  a  knowledge 
of  the  historical  situation  as  that  famous  novel,  Hugh 
Wynne  ....  In  point  of  fact,  the  novel  is  excellent 
history ;  in  point  of  fiction,  as  good  a  love  tale  as  one 
may  desire.  Of  excellent  characterization,  full  of  clear, 
contrasting  types,  yet  never  straining  the  verisimilitudes, 
the  book  possesses  brisk  action  ....  Carried  away  by 
the  good  story  he  has  to  relate,  he  bears  the  reader  along 
with  him.  The  plot  is  well  developed  ....  The 
novel  is  as  much  a  promise  of  good  things  to  come  as  a 
source  of  present  entertainment  ....  One  is  safe  to 
predict  a  growing  audience  for  Mr.  Jenkins*  work.'* 

— Louisville  Courier- Journal. 

f<  It  should  probably  be  classified  as  a  historical  romance, 
but  it  is  vivid,  lifelike,  and  surcharged  with  human  interest. 
A  story  remarkable  for  its  reminiscent  value,  for  its  con 
structive  skill,  for  its  grouping  of  characters  and  incidents 
in  a  style  which  captivates  the  reader." 

— Rochester  Democrat   and   Chronicle. 

"Stephen  Jenkins  has  proved  in  <A  Princess  and 
Another  *  that  a  novel  of  colonial  days  can  still  be  written 
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iSB 

00^*77577^1 


